India tablet market fell 4 percent year on year and increased 38 percent quarter on quarter to 0.94 million in Q3 2017.
Lenovo replaced Datawind to become the number of tablet vendor in India. Datawind lost considerable market share — nosediving to 15.5 percent in Q3 from 26.7 percent from Q2.
China-based Lenovo increased tablet market share to 20.3 percent from 14.5 percent.
Acer has become the second largest tablet supplier in the India tablet market in the third quarter of 2017. Acer’s share increased to 16 percent from 1 percent.
Tablet PCs are finding improved adoption in corporate as well as Government segment. Education was the key segment for B2B sales. “Tablet PC in consumer space was sidelined by mobile phones with 5.5” & above screen size due to lack of product differentiation and compelling use cases,” said Narinder Kumar, lead analyst at CMR.
Lenovo has 20.3 percent market share in the tablet market. Lenovo achieved 94 percent growth in Q3 as compared with Q2.
Lenovo’s growth was primarily because of plan of distribution of its tablets towards NAMO E-Tab Tablet Sahay Yojana under the Gujarat government in August 2017. Corporate deals for their digital transformation also supported Lenovo.
Lenovo’s tablet model Tab3 7 inch was the highest contributor with 13 percent market share in the Indian tablet market.
Acer becomes the second largest tablet vendor with 16 percent share. Recently Gujarat government distributed Acer tablets among the 1st year college students which has contributed to the growth of INR 5-10K tablets.
4G, 3G and Wi-Fi based tablets achieved quarter on quarter growth of 53 percent, 44 percent and 22 percent respectively. 2G based tablets fell 15 percent from the previous quarter.
Google Android has 92 percent market share due to the increased availability of Android tablets in the market. Android market grew 43 percent from the last quarter. Apple iOS grew 5 percent and its market share remained steady at 8 percent similar to the last quarter.
The digitization program of the India government involves pushing educational institutes to adapt newer technologies will continue to boost the tablet market to a great extent. Digital transformation of enterprises will enhance tablet demand.
“With the cost of 4G data going down, the demands for 4G devices will significantly increase in the coming quarters, this will increase the affordability of 4G tablets. Hence the demand for low-cost tablets is likely to grow significantly in the coming year also,” said Menka Kumari, analyst at CMR.
