Global tablet shipments are expected to drop 4.6% sequentially to reach 42.84 million units in the second quarter, which is still the slow season for the table market. Vendors have yet to step up their orders for the new products they are supposed to launch in the third quarter. However, the shipment volume for th esecond quarter will drop only 7.9% on year, an improvement from the previous quarters' over 10% drops.
Apple iPad shipments are estiamted to reach 11.1 million units, up 8.8% sequentially. The second quarter was originally the slow season for Apple's tablet products, but the launch of the iPad Pro has changed the company's product lifecycle and iPad Air 2's price cut will also help improve Apple's tablet shipment performance in second-quarter 2016, according to Digitimes Research's latest report on tablets.
China's white-box players are seeing more fluctuations in the second quarter. Spreadtrum's 3G solutions continue to see price cuts and have attracted many white-box vendors to join the tablet market. In addition, with Cherry Trail-based Windows tablet reference design becoming mature and able to replace existing Bay Trail-CR solutions that have been released for over two years, many white-box vendors are preparing to launch Windows 2-in-1 devices in the second quarter.
As for non-Apple first-tier vendors, most of them have turned to focus on profitability and are no long keen on gaining market share. The strategy has significantly impacted the first-tier group's overall shipment performance and their combined shipments are expected to drop 12.2% sequentially to reach only 16.14 million units.
In the second quarter, Samsung Electronics is not as aggressive as it was in the same quarter a year ago in developing new tablet products. Lenovo and Asustek are both aggressively developing new products and will release new Android and Microsoft Surface-like products.
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