Tablet war brewing in South Africa

 ·29 Jul 2013

Tablet sales have increased by as much 46% in South Africa since the beginning of 2013, according to new data from World Wide Worx.

The tablet market, which was niche and borderline non-existent before the launch of the Apple iPad in 2010, has gone from strength to strength in the global market.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), tablet shipments will exceed portable PCs in 2013, and are expected to surpass PC sales in 2015.

“IDC continues to believe that PCs will have an important role in this new era of computing, especially among business users. But for many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC,” the IDC said.

The research firm also noted that the tablet market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region grew 184% year on year in the first quarter of 2013, to reach a total of 2.25 million units.

New data from World Wide Worx shows that, in South Africa, at the end of June 2013, more than 1.4 million tablets have been sold, up from the 960,000 sales at the end of 2012.

Brand power

The IDC’s quarterly tablet tracker places Apple’s global market share at 39.6% – ahead of closest rival, Samsung, with 17.9%.

When looking at the leading brands in South Africa, Apple also dominates with a 45% market share – but Samsung is catching up quickly with a 39% share.

In its latest financial report, Apple noted a 14% quarter-on-quarter decline in iPad sales – from 17 million units in 2012 to 14.6 million in 2013.

According to World Wide Worx MD, Arthur Goldstuck, in South Africa, Samsung sold 214,000 tablets in the first 6 months of 2013, compared to Apple’s 150,000 iPads.

“However, no single model of any Samsung tablet has outsold any of the iPads,” he wrote in a Business Times column (28 July 2013).

Other brands, including Acer, Huawei, Asus, Sony and Google‘s Nexus tablet, account for the other 16%.

Vendor Tablet sales (South Africa)
Apple 625,000
Samsung 545,000
Huawei 75,000
Acer 22,000
Onyx 20,000
Wise Touch 20,000
Other* 82,000
Unbranded 10,000
Total 1,399,000

*Asus, BlackBerry, Colpad, Google Nexus, HP, HTC, Sony, Telefunken

More on tablet growth

Tablet shipments to surpass portable PCs in 2013

Apple: expect more gamechangers

Tablet sales are booming

Steepest PC market decline yet for MEA

PC market losing out to tablets

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