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Worldwide tablet shipments down 12 percent in the 2nd quarter

People aren’t so keen in buying tablets anymore as tablet shipments were down 12 percent in the second quarter, marking a seventh consecutive quarter of decline.

According to market research firm IDC, the tablet sector only shipped 38.7 million units during the second quarter compared to 44.1 million units from a year ago.

Bigger demand for big-screen smartphones, lack of interesting new features, and tablet owners sticking to their old models are seen as reasons on why tablet sales continue to decline.

IDC senior research analyst Jitest Urbrani said that consumers and enterprise are now looking for more productive form factors and operating systems. He did note that the next 12 to 18 months will be very interesting for the tablet sector as Google unveils the Android Nougat with better multi-tasking support and as they begin to merge their two operating systems.

Android-powered tablets remained at the top of the struggling market with 65 percent of shipments, followed by Apple’s iOS with 26 percent, and Microsoft’s Windows with 9 percent.

Meanwhile, Apple shipped the most number of tablets compared to other companies with 10 million units shipped in the second quarter for a 25.8 percent market share. The tech company was followed by Samsung with 6 million units shipped for a 15.6 share and Lenovo with 2.5 million units shipped.

Huawei and Amazon rounded out the top five tablet developers but the two mentioned companies posted the largest year-over-year growth with 71 percent and 1,208 percent respectively. The top two, Apple and Samsung, saw year-over-year decline of 9.2 percent and 24.5 percent respectively.

(Photo Source: androidcentral.com)