Tech

IDC: Tablet shipments continue to fall, with Samsung and Apple hardest hit

Android continues to dominate tablets, accounting for 65 percent of the units shipped.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor Aug. 1, 2016 at 11:31 a.m. PT

For the seventh straight quarter tablet shipments have declined, with the second quarter of this year showing a 12.3 percent year-over-year decline, according to market research firm IDC.

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Worldwide shipments of tablets -- which includes slates and detachables -- fell to 38.7 million, down from 44.1 million for the year-ago quarter.

The top two players -- Apple and Samsung -- both saw shipments decline by 9.2 and 24.5 percent year-over-year respectively. Still, the companies managed to ship 10 million and 6 million units respectively during the period.

But it's not all bad news.

Lenovo and Huawei -- which sit at number three and four respectively -- both shipped 2.5 million tablets and saw year-over-year growth of 3.1 and 71.0 percent respectively.

Amazon is also doing well, squeaking into the top five spot for only the second time for a non-holiday quarter. However, the spectacular growth of over 1200 percent is down to the fact that IDC did not include the 6-inch tablets offered by Amazon in Q2 2015 listings.

Amazon shifted 1.6 million tablets during the quarter, with IDC expecting the next quarter to be strong too, thanks in part to the company's Prime Day sale.

On the operating system front, Android dominated the quarter, accounting for 65 percent of the shipments, iOS in second place with 26 percent of the market, and Windows accounting for the remaining 9 percent.