IDC

tablets

Analyst firm IDC said that shipments of “media tablet” devices into the worldwide channel fell by 28 percent on a sequential basis in the first calendar quarter of 2011 to 7.2 million units worldwide, “suggesting that demand for the category may not be quite as strong as recent media hype suggests.” Sales were impacted by a slowdown in consumer spending following the Christmas sales period. Contrastingly, the company raised its full year 2011 shipment forecast to 53.5 million units from 50.4 million, stating that the market will be aided by “the entrance of competitive new devices in second half of 2011.” While Apple’s iPad line continued to dominate, IDC said that “some supply-chain hiccups on screens as well as the pre-release announcement of the iPad 2 several weeks before its actual availability combined to have a noticeable impact on the company’s shipments for the quarter.” Mobile phone vendors, such as Samsung and Motorola, found “moderate” success with devices, but due to their focus on telco channels, “sales were largely stymied by many consumers’ unwillingness to sign up for the 3G/4G data plans that the carriers typically require along with these devices.”

According to IDC, Android-based devices now account for 34 percent of the total, a share increase of 8.2 percent over the previous quarter. Separately, Google published its breakdown of devices accessing Android Market in the period to 5 July 2011, which indicated that just 0.9 percent of the total was made up of devices using a tablet version of the OS (Android 3.0 or Android 3.1). This makes it by far the smallest product group, with mocoNews.net noting a greater presence of devices running the aging 2009 Android 1.5 smartphone release (1.4 percent).