Tablet sales decline 3.4% year-over-year in spite of increases from Amazon, Apple, and Huawei

It's no secret that the tablet market has been shrinking for several years now. The IDC has been tracking data like this for quite some time now, and is reporting that this trend hasn't changed for quarter 2 of 2017. That being said, sales increases from companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Huawei have slowed this decline to 3.4%, or 37.9 million worldwide shipments. That's noticeably better than the 8.5% decline we saw for 1Q17.

The five companies with the most tablet shipments for 2Q17 were Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo. (Yes, we know the site is called Android Police, but it's important to mention Apple when it comes to tablets.) The Cupertino-based company increased sales by 1.4 million (10.0 to 11.4 million), which made for an increase from 25.4% market share in 2Q16 to 30.1% in 2Q17. This increase can be attributed to the new $329 iPad, as well as the updated 10.5" iPad Pro. Samsung's sales numbers for tablets didn't change much, but market share increased from 15.4% in 2Q16 to 15.8%.

Huawei and Amazon, on the other hand, did quite well; Huawei increased shipments from 2.1 million this time last year to 3.0 million, making for a market share increase of 5.3% to 8%. The Chinese company's cheap and cellular-enabled offerings allowed it to climb here. Similarly, Amazon increased shipments from 1.6 million to 2.4 million, increasing its market share from 4.1% to 6.4%. Both of these companies saw year-over-year growth figures of around 50%, which is pretty impressive. Amazon's ultra-cheap Fire line of tablets, including its kid-friendly options, propelled it to here.

Lastly, Lenovo's market share went down from 6.5% in 2Q16 to 5.7% in 2Q17, with sales declining from 2.5 million shipments to 2.2 million. These five manufacturers, combined with the rest of the tablet market, made for a decrease in shipments from 39.3 million this time last year to 37.9 million, or a 3.4% year-over-year loss.

The IDC expects this slowing decline to continue throughout the rest of the year. The new Microsoft and Apple product launches usually lead to inflated shipments in subsequent quarters, Windows' reintroduction to the ARM platform could help the middle of the market, and new ChromeOS devices should lead to a better market. Overall, it looks like the tablet market may be steadying itself, even if there is still a year-over-year decline.