Amazon’s introduction of its low-cost Fire tablet has sparked “a significant change in the tablet industry’s competitive landscape,” ABI Research said in a Monday report. At $50, the Fire’s price “is significantly lower than the average vendor selling price of $323,” ABI said. “It is a calculated risk that Amazon can afford to take as the company shifts its revenue focus away from solely hardware and toward recurring digital content sales.” ABI Research estimates Amazon sold 5 million units of its various tablet models in Q4 2015, it said. That was enough to rank Amazon third overall for branded tablet shipments in the quarter, behind Apple (16.1 million units) and Samsung (9 million), it said. For calendar 2015, Amazon sold 7.6 million tablets, ranking it fifth behind Apple (49.6 million), Samsung (34.1 million), Lenovo (11.1 million) and Huawei (7.7 million), it said. Most tablet suppliers are taking a “wait-and-see approach” to Amazon’s $50 Fire, ABI said. Going for such a low-ball price is “a path only few can follow, as vendors without content distribution rights and value-added services can only rely on the transaction price of their hardware to stay in business,” it said. “Conversely, content owners may find value in broadening their ecosystems by striking relationships with tablet vendors to get their programming in front of more users.”

IDC sees global tablet shipments declining 5.9 percent this year to 195 million units, but expects the overall market to return to positive growth in 2017, albeit by single-digit percentages, on growing demand for detachable devices, the research firm said in a Tuesday report. Detachables, which IDC defines as a “somewhat hybrid category that brings together slate tablets and PCs,” is expected to grow to 63.8 million in 2020 from 16.6 million shipments in 2015, it said. “Beyond the growing demand for detachable devices, we're also witnessing an increase in competition within this segment that will help drive design, innovation, and a decline in average prices.” The change from slate form factor to detachables will spur other changes to the tablet industry, including the expectation that Microsoft Surface-based devices “will begin taking share from the other platforms, most notably Android,” it said. “This momentous shift in form factor will bring along the first significant impact of Windows-based devices that the tablet market has seen. ... Windows 10 seems to be making headway in both the PC and tablet markets, mainly driven by devices with larger screen sizes.”

Microsoft is recalling about 2.25 million AC power cords sold with the Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3 tablets before March 15 because they’re susceptible to overheating, fire and electrical shock, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a Tuesday notice. The recall also includes the power cords sold separately with accessory power supply units, the commission said. About 190,000 power cords sold in Canada also are affected, it said. Microsoft has received 56 reports of the power cords overheating and catching fire and five reports of electrical shock to consumers, it said. Consumers should unplug and stop using the recalled power cords and contact Microsoft for a free replacement, it said.

E Fun announced new affordable Windows 10 and Android tablets Wednesday before their CES debuts. The 8.9-inch Flexx 9A ($149), 10.1-inch Flexx 10A ($199) and 11.6-inch Flexx 11A ($249) detachable Windows 10 tablets use a quad-core Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor and offer 2 GB system memory, removable keyboards and dual cameras, the company said. In the Android line, E Fun added a 2-in-1 tablet with a quad-core Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor with 2 GB system memory and 64 GB onboard storage. The Nextbook Ares 11A ($219) has 2-megapixel front and rear cameras. All four models will ship in Q2, said the company.

Amazon began taking pre-orders Monday for a Kindle Fire bundle built around the Fire 8 HD tablet. The $249 bundle combines the tablet with a year of Kindle Unlimited and a limited edition leather cover, which sell separately for $349, Amazon said. Kindle Unlimited gives users access to more than 1 million books and thousands of audio books. The Kindle Fire HD 8 includes Blue Shade, a feature designed to limit the amount of blue light emitted for comfortable night viewing, and 8 GB internal storage, Amazon said. Storage is expandable to 128 GB via microSD.

Global tablet shipments will reach 211.3 million units in 2015, down 8.1 percent from 2014, IDC said Tuesday in its quarterly tablet tracker forecast. The new forecast follows three consecutive quarters of declining worldwide tablet shipments in 2015, IDC said. “Despite the challenges facing the overall market, IDC expects detachable tablets will continue to represent a growing portion of total shipments,” it said. “We're witnessing a real market transition as end users shift their demand towards detachables and more broadly towards a productivity-based value proposition. The proliferation of detachable offerings from hardware vendors continues to help drive this switch.” IDC is “confident” that the detachables segment will nearly double in size in the next year, recording more than 75 percent growth compared with 2015, it said.

Q3 tablet shipments in Western European markets fell 1 percent from the same 2014 quarter, to 8.7 million units, IDC said Thursday. IDC views the small decline as “a clear signal of stabilization” in the tablets market after previous quarters of more significant declines, the research firm said. “In the context of struggling sales of consumer slate tablets and in view of the fast-rising demand for devices with a detachable keyboard observed over the past few quarters, several industry players have adjusted their product portfolios to include the detachable form factor," IDC said. "The home segment in particular benefitted from this supply boost as most of the new products introduced this quarter targeted consumers to attract back to school demand but also in preparation for the holiday season."

Though Windows tablets have traveled “a long bumpy road,” 2015 will go down as the year when Microsoft and its partner OEMs finally got tablets “right,” Strategy Analytics said Thursday in a report. Windows tablet shipments jumped 58 percent in the first nine months of 2015, and their “momentum will carry through the holiday season” to reach 22 million shipments for the full year, for a 10 percent share of the total market, the research firm said. Android remains the dominant 2015 share winner with 68 percent, followed by iOS with 22 percent, it said. By 2019, the firm projects iOS will retain a 23 percent share, with Windows growing to 18 percent at the expense of Android, which will fall to 59 percent. “As the enterprise market becomes increasingly open to the wide scale deployment” of tablet platforms, Microsoft “has a key advantage in that its operating systems are found on the vast majority of PC and servers within the enterprise, potentially providing a smoother integration” of tablets “using the Windows OS into the enterprise,” said Peter King, Strategy Analytics research director-tablet and touch-screen strategies service. Most, if not all, major vendors will have high to premium tier Windows tablet offerings by the end of 2016 to address prosumers and enterprises currently served by Microsoft's Surface Pro line. Power, graphics and functionality aside, Windows 10 “provides a stable base from which the ecosystem can grow and we are entering a world” where Windows tablets can take “significant market share” from Android at the low end “and compete head-to-head with iPad in the high and premium segments,” said Senior Analyst Eric Smith.

UniPixel landed a preproduction order of its XTouch sensors from a major unidentified Japanese CE manufacturer for a touch screen in a 10-inch tablet product, the components vendor said in a Monday announcement. “While this pre-production order does not guarantee that this sensor will eventually enter mass production with this customer, we are excited about moving this opportunity forward to the next step.”

Samsung is billing the Galaxy View, its 18.4-inch Android tablet due Nov. 6 at $599, as “home entertainment reimagined” because it’s designed to be carried from room to room within the home, the company said in a Thursday announcement. The 1080p tablet has Wi-Fi and optional LTE connectivity, making it easy “to enjoy the latest entertainment from anywhere with no cords, extra equipment or cable connections,” the company said. It has a “grab-and-go” handle for better portability throughout the home, and its battery provides eight hours of power on a single charge, it said.