Low-cost Android tablets are eating into Apple’s leading share of the tablet market as aggressive PC brand strategies are squeezing overall tablet pricing, said a Friday report from Futuresource. The launch of lower priced iPads contributed to a dramatic drop in the average price of tablets since they hit the market in 2010, it said. Some emerging markets saw growth as high as 30 percent last year, but worldwide tablet revenue growth will continue to slow as “consumer sales plateau and retail prices continue a steady decline from 2014,” it said. Enterprise sales will become an increasingly important driver of demand, said the researcher, especially in developed markets. Workplace tablet use has been driven by “bring your own device” trends, and tablets are being used in a complementary role rather than as a PC replacement, said analyst Simon Bryant. Issues of security and untested apps on tablets that previously suppressed enterprise demand have largely been addressed, and many tablets pack the same level of security as laptops, he said.

Qualcomm subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies is collaborating with Allwinner Technology to expand Snapdragon processors into the connected tablet segment. Allwinner will offer system services for OEMs and ODMs creating 4G LTE-enabled tablets with Snapdragon 410 and 210 processors, Qualcomm said. The Android-based processors support seven global mobile networks, LTE-Broadcast content and dual SIM technology, expanded camera functions, including zero shutter lag and high dynamic range, and QuickCharge 2.0 technology, Qualcomm said. Using its established channel of support and services for independent Chinese design houses, Allwinner will help expedite commercial deployment of high-quality, cost-effective 4G LTE-enabled tablets based on the Snapdragon 410 and 210 processors, the companies said.

Global shipments of tablets, including stand-alone devices and tablets built into 2-in-1 convertible laptops, will reach 221.8 million units this year, a 3.8 percent decline from 2014, IDC said Thursday in its quarterly “tablet tracker” report. IDC’s new downgraded outlook follows two consecutive quarters of declining sales and is a "modest" downward revision from the previous forecast of 234.5 million units and 2.1 percent year-over-year growth in 2015, IDC said. “While IDC expects overall sales to decline in 2015, some segments of the product category are poised to experience strong growth,” it said. For example, “cellular-capable” tablets and 2-in-1 devices are “a huge opportunity for the entire tablet ecosystem," it said. Although still a small portion of the entire market, this segment is expected to grow this year and beyond, it said. IDC forecasts that this segment will see a five-year compound annual growth rate of 5.6 percent compared with Wi-Fi-only devices, which will experience a 0.4 percent five-year CAGR decline, it said.

More than a quarter of tablet owners use their tablets less frequently than they thought they would after the initial purchase, an ecoATM survey found. Noting that tablet shipments “have been on a steady decline,” and that the volume of tablets traded in through ecoATM doubled in Q1 from the same quarter a year ago, the supplier of e-waste recycling kiosks set out to determine whether those trends reflected a diminishing consumer appetite for tablets, the company said in a Wednesday announcement. It commissioned a study in which 1,175 U.S. tablet owners were canvassed earlier this month on their tablet usage habits, it said. It found that about 26 percent said they use their tablets an average of less than three hours a week, and 8 percent said they no longer use them at all, it said. The findings suggested that lack of “utility” might well be the main reason why the novelty of tablet usage has waned, it said. For example, a clear majority (60 percent) of those canvassed indicated they prefer using a laptop instead of a tablet, while 26 percent said their smartphones gives them all the functionality they need, it said.

Apple and Samsung suffered double-digit Q1 shipment declines in tablets, said Strategy Analytics in a report. Despite “pockets of growth” in the market among Huawei, LG and TCL-Alcatel, the overall tablet market fell 8 percent year over year, while Apple and Samsung are using 2015 as a “rebuilding year” for future growth, Strategy Analytics said. Smaller, more nimble competitors are gaining on Apple and Samsung with “innovative new features and cellular-connected tablets,” said analyst Eric Smith. The period of “phenomenal historic growth has come to an end and a much more normal growth rate is now prevailing,” he said. Apple has begun a marketing campaign to revive sales "after a five-quarter slump,” said analyst Peter King. Thinner and slightly faster SKUs "aren’t going to bring iPad back to growth,” said King, but Apple's work with IBM in the enterprise market, along with rumored new features for upcoming models, "should position the company well for long-term growth." Samsung will pare down its product portfolio to focus on a “tighter circle of strong performers,” such as Tab S, Tab 4 and the new Tab A, said Strategy Analytics. Meanwhile, Huawei shipped 1.3 million tablets in Q1, a jump of 147 percent, giving the Chinese vendor a 2.4 percent market share. North America will account for 28 percent of global tablet shipments this year, and user penetration for the region will reach 49 percent, said the researcher. Asia Pacific, the world's largest tablet region in 2015, accounts for 35 percent of global shipments, while user penetration remains at 6 percent, leaving “large, untapped populations in emerging markets,” it said.

Tablets are about to overtake notebook PCs as the largest mobile computing category, ABI Research said Friday in a report. It estimates tablets will be 52 percent of the mobile computing market by the end of 2015, it said. Notebooks had a 51 percent share of the category as recently as 2013, but their share is expected to decline to 48 percent this year and to 47 percent by year-end 2016, it said. Tablets “serve a consumer niche that emphasizes portability and connectivity,” ABI said. But tablets’ adoption rate is “beginning to slow,” which shows they can’t match the productivity and functionality of notebooks, it said.

Samsung will pre-install Microsoft services and apps on its Android devices and offer “secured mobile productivity” for consumers and businesses through a Microsoft Office 365 and Samsung Knox Business Pack, the companies said Monday. Samsung Knox enables customers to switch easily between personal and business profiles on their devices in a secure way, said the companies. For consumers, Samsung will pre-install Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on select Samsung Android tablets, they said. The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge will come with 100 GB of additional free cloud storage for two years through Microsoft OneDrive, they said.

International Data Corp. scaled back its five-year forecast for the tablet category, the research firm said Thursday. Worldwide shipments are expected to reach 234.5 million units this year, a "modest” year-over-year increase of 2.1 percent, IDC said. The researcher expects “low but positive growth” for the market in coming years on demand from the commercial sector and as “Microsoft slowly gains a foothold.” While phablets are becoming more popular, a portion of the consumer market still wants customization options of a larger screen size, analyst Jitesh Ubrani said. Vendors are cutting prices on smaller tablets and adopting features such as voice calling to compete against phablets, Ubrani said. Android will continue as platform leader with a two-thirds share of the tablet market over the forecast period, IDC said. It called iOS the “weakest link” in the category with share expected to decline this year to levels beneath those of the past three years. Windows is expected to gain “significant share” over the forecast period, growing from 5.1 percent last year to 14.1 percent in 2019, IDC said. "Microsoft is doing a lot of good things right now,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC research director-tablets. The launch of Windows 10 later this year will boost Microsoft’s share and affect the industry as a whole, Bouchard said. "There is an appetite for a platform that can provide a productivity experience that remains consistent across multiple form factors and device types,” and Microsoft is "well positioned to capture some of that demand,” he said.

A 50 percent drop in Nook sales contributed to a 1 percent revenue dip in Barnes & Noble’s retail segment for fiscal Q3 ended Jan. 31, the company said Tuesday. Including digital content, devices and accessories, Nook segment revenue tumbled 51 percent to $78 million for the quarter, the company said. Device and accessories sales plummeted 63 percent due to “lower selling volume,” the company said, while content sales of $41 million represented a 29 percent decline over the year-ago quarter. CEO Mike Huseby said on an earnings webcast that Barnes & Noble’s purchase of Microsoft’s and Pearson’s Nook Media interest during the quarter helped “clear the path” for the company’s separation of its education segment from the retail business. The separation will let each business “better realize their strategic opportunities,” Huseby said. The Nook team “continues to seek opportunities to stabilize and potentially reverse the decline in content sales in what continues to be a challenging environment,” he said. Barnes & Noble remains committed to supporting the Nook product, which Huseby called an “integral part of our future because it is important to our customers.” In response to a question about expanding the Nook business, Huseby noted that Barnes & Noble has just released a new unified version of Android after having put out a number of different devices in the past with their own operating systems. “Now it’s a unified Android system,” he said. “We’re continuing to improve and streamline and consolidate the operating system, so we have the ability to be more nimble and adaptive on flowing it to other larger technology platforms.” Barnes & Noble is still in discussions about distributing the Nook app to “different larger scale platforms,” he said. Overall earnings for the quarter were $72 million, versus $63 million in the year-ago quarter, the company said, on sales of $1.96 billion.

Consumers with Lenovo tablets need to remove Superfish software, change their passwords, use caution when using public Wi-Fi networks and check their personal banking information, Aditi Jhaveri, FTC consumer education specialist, said in a blog post Friday. Lenovo shipped products that included Superfish software between September and December, but the software has been disabled since January, the company said in a statement last week (see 1502190046). Lenovo was hit with a lawsuit seeking class-action status by a blogger last week for alleged privacy violations stemming from its use of Superfish software (see 1502230061). “Although Lenovo has announced that they have discontinued pre-installing Superfish on its notebooks, some Lenovo notebooks sold today may still have Superfish pre-installed,” Jhaveri said.