According to IDC, W. European tablet shipments total 7.5 million units in Q3 2018-- a -2.9% Y-o-Y decline, with decent slate results in both commercial and consumer markets helping sustain an ailing market.
Strong back to school sales and "solid" enterprise growth help slate tablets in the enterprise segment, in good part thanks to "exceptional" iPad performance. Meanwhile smaller companies prove susceptible to consumer promotions, leading to healthy growth in SMB space. On the consumer side, strong iPad sales, Amazon Prime day and early seasonal promotions (such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday) bring slate shipments to a positive for the first time since 2013.
Things are not so rosy for detachables-- shipments are down by -14.5% Y-o-Y as device refreshes were postponed ahead of Q4 2018 new device launches. Commercial space also sees a soft decline, even as more companies invest in the mobile solutions that detachables can provide for mobile workers, while the consumer side sees higher levels of stabilisation in demand.
"The Surface Go was positioned to offer a midrange alternative, aimed predominately at the consumer and education space, and its greater affordability triggered an uptake for Microsoft in the third quarter, after quarters of challenging performances," the analyst says. "Microsoft reached number-one position in the detachable category this quarter, which was further aided by the inventory management by Apple, ahead of the iPad Pro refresh."
Moving to the vendor rankings, Apple comes 1st with 25.1% market share and a 7.9% Y-o-Y shipment increase. The company has strong double-digit growth across the two segment groups as the more attractively priced iPad refresh drives demand. In 2nd place is Samsung with 22.2% and a -7.2% Y-o-Y decline, if one supported by strong results in higher-end space.
Amazon is 3rd with 10.8% market share and shipment growth reaching 19.2% Y-o-Y, the result of strong Prime day sales of low-cost devices. Lenovo ranks 4th with 8.2% and a -16.5% Y-o-Y decline as the company is less aggressive in the lower-end tablet market. Coming 5th is Huawei, with 7.2% share and 59.3% Y-o-Y growth, with particularly strong consumer performance.
