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Apple's new iPad Airs and Pros help the company consolidate its tablet market dominance

Published: Aug 05, 2024, 7:53 AM

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Apple's new iPad Airs and Pros help the company consolidate its tablet market dominance

Although Apple has been comfortably leading the global tablet market for... as long as we can remember, the sales numbers of the tech giant's iPad portfolio are not what they used to be a few years back. That's actually true for the entire industry, which thrived in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling once people started returning to traditional offices and classrooms and finally showing signs of recovery in Q2 2024.

Every major tablet brand is on the rise

That's right, the market is up from 28.2 million unit shipments in Q2 2023 to 34.4 mil between April and June of this year, with all top five vendors enjoying solid or absolutely stellar year-over-year growth. In first place, Apple claims a nice and juicy 35.8 percent slice of the worldwide pie, which is actually down from a 37 percent share this time last year.

But quarterly iPad shipments have managed to jump from 10.4 to 12.3 million, and there are no prizes for guessing what models are primarily responsible for that healthy progress. Yes, it appears that the latest (and inarguably greatest) iPad Pros and Airs have connected with audiences around the world... apart from China.

The largest smartphone and tablet market out there unsurprisingly remains devoted to homebrewed products from brands like Lenovo, Huawei, and Xiaomi. Those are the world's third, fourth, and fifth-biggest tablet vendors right now (in that order), and surprisingly (or not), the smallest of the three scored the largest growth of the top five in Q2 2024, nearly doubling its sales from the same period of last year.

Of course, Lenovo and Huawei have no reason to be ashamed with their respective 16.7 and 40.3 percent increases either, with the latter beating both Apple and Samsung's progress from Q2 2023 to Q2 2024. Samsung, by the way, can be extremely proud of its silver medal-placing 6.9 million unit sales result and 20.1 percent market share given that the Galaxy Tab roster was not expanded with any new devices these last few months. Unless you consider the rehashed Tab S6 Lite (2024) version a new product, which the International Data Corporation (IDC) clearly does not.

Either way, it seems safe to assume that the company's sales figures will jump by a significantly larger percentage when the Galaxy Tab S10 family sees daylight, although the day Samsung threatens Apple's global tablet supremacy continues to look incredibly distant.

What's next for the recovering tablet market?

For now, all of the world's top tablet vendors should be happy to see the market return to its pre-pandemic levels, with further growth expected in the near future and more long-term growth being hard to predict at the moment as it depends on many variables and external factors.

The 2021-released iPad mini 6 is still without a sequel. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena

For instance, we continue to have no idea when the iPad mini 7 will be released, with some rumors calling for a distant 2026 debut that would obviously make it difficult for Apple to compete with the best compact Android tablets out there for the next couple of years. It also remains to be seen if the iPad Air, iPad Pro, and perhaps even the "regular" iPad will continue to "focus on improving technology" with fancy OLED screens and increasingly more mind-blowing processors in these next couple of years.

For their part, the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, and Xiaomi are expected to keep their focus on expanding their successful low to mid-end devices with reasonable prices to new markets and wider audiences. Finally, Samsung is likely to remain faithful to a more balanced strategy aiming to cover all segments and target audiences with a rich and diverse product portfolio.

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.