The market researchers at Canalys claim that Apple saw iPad unit sales growth of 50.3 percent in the first quarter and extended its lead in the tablet market.
“The tablet market continues to defy expectations with the strength of its comeback,” Canalys Research Analyst Himani Mukka says. “Even beyond the traditionally strong holiday season, vendors are seeing elevated demand as the need for affordable computing power and connectivity persists. At a time when the overall PC market is facing a supply crunch, the vendors that have strong tablet offerings have been able to squeeze out even greater gains from the increased demand for screen access and remote productivity brought about by the pandemic.”
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According to Canalys, Apple extended its tablet market lead in the first quarter by growing iPads sales by 50.3 percent to 15.2 million units sold. Samsung came in second, with 8 million units sold, followed by Lenovo (3.8 million), Amazon (3.5 million), and Huawei (2.1 million). Aside from Huawei, which saw units sold decline by 28 percent year-over-year (YOY), all of these vendors experienced double- or triple-digit growth in the quarter.
Looking ahead, Canalys expects tablets to become mainstays in growing sectors such as education as well as in “wider commercial deployments to support digital transformation.”