Apple and Huawei flex their strength in a declining tablet market: IDC

According to a new report by International Data Corporation (IDC), the overall tablet market for Western Europe declined 10.1 percent YoY, shipping 6.3 million units in the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18).

IDC said in terms of volume, detachable had a challenging quarter, declining by 23.3 percent YoY.

As the market has become increasingly dominated by Apple and Microsoft, and consequently more premium-focused, the range of options available to more price-constrained customers has diminished, leading them to consider cheaper alternatives such as lower end convertibles or even traditional PCs.

"Apple repeated last year's successful strategy of positioning the iPad at a more attractive price point to address the erosion of consumer demand for tablets," said Daniel Goncalves, senior research analyst, IDC Western European Personal Computing Devices.

"This triggered a wave of renewals of old iPads and some Android tablets which helped Apple to perform above the market average and regain the leading position in Western Europe," Goncalves said.

Samsung ranked second, recording a market share of 22.3 percent, but decreasing by 14.2 percent YoY.

This decline can be attributed to the sluggish performance of premium Android devices, and also a degree of inventory management in preparation for the launch of the Galaxy Tab S4.

While Huawei ranked third with a market share of 9.1 percent and increasing by a substantial 110.3 percent YoY. Its penetration strategy within Western Europe has proven to be very successful, as a solid growth of market share was achieved in the low-midrange space. Lenovo ranked fourth with 7.6 percent market share, but with a heavy decline of 23.4 percent YoY.

As it is primarily focused on consumer and lower-priced models, Lenovo was particularly susceptible to competition from Huawei and Apple's cheaper iPad and Amazon ranked fifth with a 4.4 percent market share but declined by 8.6 percent YoY.