IDC: global tablet market down 12.3% YoY to 38.7M units; Apple marketshare increases to 25.8% despite iPad sales declining 9.2% YoY
According to the latest data from IDC out today, Apple continued its lead of the worldwide tablet market in Q2 despite a decline in overall sales.
Context & Ripple Effects
A year after IDC reported the tablet market shrinking with Samsung and Apple both losing ground — Lenovo, LG, and Huawei grew while the two leaders' combined share slid to 41% in Q2 2015 — this quarter flips the dynamic: the market keeps contracting, but Apple is now gaining share anyway.
That matters because it marks the transition point of the category. The corpus traces a clear arc from here: Apple outgrowing a flat market in 2019, then leading a genuine rebound in 2021 at 34.2% share. The 2016 quarter is where 'declining leader' becomes 'consolidating leader.'
First-order effects
- Apple holds the worldwide lead at 25.8% share even though iPad shipments fell 9.2% YoY — its decline is simply slower than the market's 12.3% contraction, so weaker vendors are absorbing the losses.
Second-order effects
- Android tablet makers competing on price face a shrinking pool of buyers while the premium incumbent cedes less volume than they do, forcing them toward cheaper hardware or exit rather than share gains.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — leader shrinking slower than the market, then outgrowing it — the tablet business settles into a replacement-cycle market structured around one dominant premium vendor, with long-tail Android players marginalized.
The trend: Tablets are moving from a growth category into a mature, replacement-driven market where share consolidates around the premium incumbent even as total volumes fall.