Shipments record a decline of 17.5% YoY, and a QoQ decline of 27.7% primarily due to growth of phablets and BIS certification compliance issues
Samsung leads the market with Datawind and Apple coming in at #2 and #3, respectively; Apple back in Top 3 after 1Q CY 2013
Top 5 vendors make up nearly 65.6% of Tablet shipments
According to CMR’s India Quarterly Tablet PC Market Review, 1Q (January-March) 2014, June 2014 release announced today, 746,463 Tablets were sold (shipped) in the quarter by as many as 30 domestic and international vendors. However, only eleven vendors shipped in significant volumes of more than 20,000 units during the period.
Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice stated, “The Tablet shipment results are very much in line with our expectations. BIS certification issues had a temporary impact. However, rise in popularity of Phablets has diminished the significance of Tablets among potential consumers, particularly in the sub Rs 15,000-20,000 price category.”
“In such a scenario, the hopes of the Tablet industry are pegged high on enterprises. However, the challenge there remains bringing to market solutions-oriented Tablets rather than plain computing and general content consumption devices. As vendors launch more solutions-oriented devices, with a mix of software and hardware improvisations, we should see Tablets gaining adoption within the enterprise segment”, Faisal added.
India Enterprise Tablets Market
CMR started reporting the performance of Tablet shipments in the enterprise space separately, starting 3Q CY 2013. As per these estimates, enterprises consumed around 22.1% of the total Tablet shipments during 1Q CY 2014.
Dwelling on individual vendor performances, Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “Samsung continues to be the leader in the category primarily due to its diverse product portfolio with offerings at various price points, screen sizes and connectivity perspective. Apple is back in the ‘Top 3’ after almost a year on the back of an aggressive marketing campaign and strong sales of iPad Mini that contributed almost 60% of Apple’s total India iPad shipments during 1Q CY 2014.”
“Today, the India market has only 30 players competing in the Tablet PC segment, as compared to an all-time high of 68 during 2Q CY 2013. This shows that the India Tablets market has seen consolidation in recent quarters, as all the players who launched products could not generate sufficient sales to sustain operations. Going forward, it will be interesting to watch how the 7-inch Tablet PC market, which currently contributes close to 80% of total sales, will emerge from the expected stiff face-off from Phablets,” Tarun concluded.
Notes for Editors
- CyberMedia Research (CMR) has been the pioneer market intelligence and consulting group to run a comprehensive quarterly market update on the India Tablets market since the launch of these devices in the country in October 2010. CMR’s India Quarterly Tablet PC Market Review compares Tablets on offer on over 70 features covering technology, apps, use cases, price band etc.
- CMR uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of handsets leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term shipments has been replaced by ‘sales’ in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value. In the case of handsets imported into the country, it represents the number leaving the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers.
- CyberMedia Research does not track the number of handsets brought on their person by individual passengers landing on India soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.
- CMR numbers reported here do not include shipments of Tablets for distribution by the Government of India or state governments, as part of their social welfare schemes, scholarship programmes etc.
- CMR tracks shipments of India Tablets on a quarterly basis. Accordingly, as per convention, the market size is reported on a calendar quarter basis; in all such cases this refers to an aggregated number for the three calendar months in the quarter to which the press release refers.
