Samsung may have managed to hold on to its lead in the global smartphone market even after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco but the slide in its tablet market share continues and it’s not even related to the exploding flagship. The tablet market overall has been on a decline since the past eight quarters straight and the situation did not improve in the third quarter of this year. While the global market saw a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 14.7 percent, Samsung saw its market share post a YoY decline of 19.3 percent in Q3 2016.
Market intelligence company IDC estimates that Samsung shipped 6.5 million tablets in the third quarter of this year to account for 15.1 percent of the entire market. That’s a 19.3 percent decline when compared to shipments of 8.1 million units and a market share of 16 percent during the same period last year. Samsung has retained its number two position in the global tablet market while Apple remains in first place, however, even it saw a 6.2 percent YoY decline this past quarter.
IDC says that all of the negative press from the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco hasn’t impacted the company’s tablet business but cautions that overreliance on the declining tablet market is what has caused Samsung to post a YoY decline of 19.3 percent. It points out that the attempt by Samsung to enter the detachable market with the TabPro S at the start of this year hasn’t paid off yet as the price and positioning of this tablet make it uncompetitive. Samsung will seek to improve its fortunes with a new high-end tablet, we exclusively reported recently that the company is going to launch the Galaxy Tab S3 in the first quarter of 2017.
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