Chromebook and tablet markets are being gutted by weak education sales and general lower consumer demand.
Beancounters from Canalys have added up some numbers and divided by their shoe size and seen a year of decline in both, with the second quarter of 2022 continuing a trend in shipment declines that started in 2021.
Those selling the hardware have had to contend with component shortages and rising inflation, but there are also a couple of specific issues in the tablet and Chromebook space that have contributed to respective 11 percent and 57 percent year-on-year second-quarter drops in shipments.
Tablets were in strong demand during the pandemic, but that wave of interest has ebbed away and the latest disappointing quarter adds to the picture of a market recalibrating after the pandemic. The market leaders, apart from Amazon, saw declines as the market continued to suffer.
Canalys analyst Himani Mukka said that the rapid fall in consumer and education demand has accelerated the decline in tablet shipments as we move further from the peak of the pandemic.
“Inflation and fears of a recession are at the forefront of consumers’ minds, and spending on tablets has taken a backseat as the need for pandemic-era levels of use has fallen. Unlike notebooks, tablets are not vital for business productivity, so commercial demand has not helped to offset the drop in consumer purchases”, she added.
“On the commercial side, the outlook is more optimistic, though shipments remain relatively small”, said Mukka.
For Chromebooks, the drop in activity among education buyers was the main problem, but market leader Acer was able to weather the storm slightly better than some of its competitors.
