Despite new tablet launches and the holiday shopping season, tablet sales fell in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to new data from market research firm IDC.
That’s hardly surprising, since Apple revealed last week that it sold 21.4 million iPads during the holiday quarter, down from 26 million during the same period in 2013. Apple isn’t alone: four out of the top five players in the tablet market saw a drop in sales year-over-year in the final quarter. Lenovo was the only company to buck the trend.
Sales of Amazon’s Fire tablets took it in the teeth, with IDC projecting that the Seattle-based tech giant only sold 1.7 million units during the holiday shopping season. That’s down almost 70 percent from the same period a year ago, and comes even after Amazon refreshed its entire tablet lineup. Some of the drop may be the result of a technicality, since Amazon’s new 6-inch Fire HD doesn’t meet the criteria to be counted as a tablet in IDC’s sales figures.
Even with the overall sales decline in Q4, the worldwide tablet market managed to post modest growth for the full year. According to IDC, tablet shipments for all of 2014 totaled 229.6 million units, up 4.4 percent from 2013. The sales leaderboard didn’t change much either: Apple remains in first place, while Samsung trails as a distant second.
