Indian tablet market grew 14.4% in Q2 2016; Datawind continues domination

New Delhi: Buoyed by purchases in the commercial segment, the Indian tablet market registered a 14.4 percent growth in the second quarter of 2016, recovering somewhat from a sluggish first quarter, a report said on Friday.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), tablet shipments in India (inclusive of slate and detachables) was 0.98 million units in the second quarter. 

Shipments grew 14.4 percent over previous quarter while dipped 5.6 percent over the same period last year. 

"Tablet market declined as consumer market receded by 12.5 percent year-on-year in Q2 2016, while commercial segment continues to grow at a healthy rate indicating clear shift in the focus of the market," said Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India.

Approximately three-fourth of tablets sold in India are below $150 and driven primarily by local vendors like Datawind, iBall and Micromax followed by Lenovo. 

Samsung dominated the mid $150-350 segment while the premium $300 and above segment continues to be dominated by Apple, driven primarily by iPad Air 2. 

Datawind maintained its top position with 27.5 percentage share in the second quarter.

Samsung sustained the second position with vendor share of 14.7 percentage.

"Detachables are seeing better uptake compared to convertibles owing to the reason that convertibles are relatively premium priced while detachables are able to effectively bridge the price and functionality gap between tablets and entry level notebooks," Karthik noted.

Tablet shipments are expected to grow sequentially as the festive season approaches.

"However, overall 2016 tablet shipments are expected to decline marginally this year as ramp of commercial segment is not enough to offset the consumer segment decline," added Navkendar Singh, Senior Research Manager, Mobile Devices Research, IDC India and South Asia.