India tablet shipments down 5.6% y-o-y: IDC

Datawind maintains its lead followed by Samsung and iBall

Tablet shipments in India were 98 million units during the second quarter (Q2) of calendar year 2016. Shipments grew 14.4 per cent in Q2 over the preceding quarter, while those dropped 5.6 per cent over the same period last year, according to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC). The analyst firm expects tablet shipments to decline marginally this year.

“Tablet market declined as consumer market receded by 12.5 per cent year-on-year in Q2 2016, while commercial segment continues to grow at a healthy rate indicating a clear shift in the focus of the market,” said Karthik J, senior market analyst, client devices at IDC India.

Tablet shipments are expected to grow sequentially in Q2 of 2016 to prepare the channel with enough inventory for the upcoming festive season.

“Overall 2016 tablet shipments are expected to decline marginally this year as ramp of commercial segment isn’t enough to offset the consumer segment decline. Detachables are expected to clock a healthy double-digit annual growth in 2016 driven by entry-level Windows devices and the iPad Pro,” said Navkendar Singh, senior research manager, mobile devices research at IDC India and South Asia.

Three-fourths of tablets sold in India are below $150 and driven by local vendors such as Datawind, iBall and Micromax, followed by Lenovo.

Samsung dominates the $150-350 segment, while the premium $300-plus continues to be dominated by Apple, driven by its iPad Air 2. Also, the premium end of the detachable segment spiked in Q2 of 2016 owing to healthy shipments from Apple’s newly launched iPad Pro 9.7. “Detachables are seeing better uptake compared to convertibles as convertibles are premium priced while detachables are able to effectively bridge the price and functionality gap between tablets and entry-level notebooks. Detachables also offer the option of all three major operating system platforms to the users,” said Karthik J.

Among vendors, Datawind maintained its top position with a 27.5 percentage share in Q2 of 2016 with 14.1 per cent growth over the previous quarter. Datawind made inroads into the detachable category with Android devices in the sub-$150 segment. Datawind is likely to expand its channel and manufacturing capacity in response to the sharp trajectory it has been seeing in the past year.

Samsung sustained the second position with a vendor share of 14.7 percentage in Q2 of 2016. iBall claimed the third place. However, vendor shipments dropped 9.4 per cent in Q2 of 2016 over the same period a year ago. iBall is set to begin local manufacturing of tablets towards the later part of the year.

Lenovo slipped to the fourth place with a 11.2 percentage share in Q2 of 2016 as the shipments declined 6.2 per cent over the previous quarter. Shipments in the second quarter of 2016 grew 60.8 per cent over the same period last year as vendor’s focus has shifted from consumer to commercial segment.

After declining for the past two quarters, Micromax’s shipments recovered in Q2 of 2016 driven by an uptake in commercial segment. Micromax slipped to the fifth position in the quarter under review with a vendor share for 10.9 per cent. Vendors who are the key players in the detachable segment, had no contribution to the category in the reporting quarter as the channel was diluting existing inventory.