Global tablet shipments returned to growth in the first quarter of 2024, up a modest 1 per cent year-on-year to 33.7 million units.
Apple led the way with 12 million units shipped, taking 36 per cent of the global market share, according to Canalys. Samsung was in second place with 6.8 million units shipped. Huawei was third for the second consecutive quarter, shipping 2.7 million units, up a whopping 70 per cent year-on-year, thanks to demand in its home market of China and the Asia-Pacific region. Lenovo and Amazon came in fourth and fifth respectively, both shipping more than 2 million units.
In the first quarter of 2024, Huawei's tablet shipments grew 70.2 per cent year-on-year, and its global market share grew 68.8 per cent year-on-year to 8.1 per cent, ranking third. The main reason behind Huawei's significant sales growth is attributed to higher sales in the domestic market.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) released a quarterly tracking report on China's tablet PCs in the fourth quarter of 2023, which showed that China's tablet PC market shipped about 8.17 million units in the fourth quarter of 2023, a year-on-year decline of about 5.7 per cent, with a year-on-year decline of 7.3 per cent in the consumer market and a year-on-year growth of 13.8 per cent in the commercial market.
Meanwhile, Huawei overtook Apple to become the No. 1 shipper in China's tablet market in Q4 2023, marking the first time since 2010 that China's quarterly tablet shipments have seen a turnover of Top 1 brands.