Although there’s considerable debate about who has the most to lose in the global tablet war in 2015, it’s obvious who lost the most in 2014.
“Worldwide tablet shipments recorded a year-over-year decline for the first time since the market’s inception in 2010.” That’s the big reveal contained in the latest preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.
Overall shipments for tablets and 2-in-1 devices reached 76.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 (4Q14) for -3.2% growth. Although the fourth quarter witnessed a decline in the global market, shipments for the full year 2014 increased 4.4%, totaling 229.6 million units.
While Apple’s year-over-year growth constricted by 17% and Samsung’s shrunk by 18%, Amazon was the vendor that lost the most in 2014.
“Amazon recorded the steepest annual volume decline among the top five vendors,” IDC’s report summary reads. “Despite a product refresh at the end of September with their Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, and the introduction of a low-end 6-inch Fire HD (excluded from our numbers given the small screen size does not match IDC’s definition of a tablet) and 7-inch Fire HD, holiday sales declined nearly -70% compared to last year.”
