Global Q2 2013 tablet shipments experience a -9.7% Q-o-Q decline according to IDC, even if Y-o-Y growth reaches 59.6% on the 28.3 million devices shipped during the quarter.
Top vendor Apple sees lower-than-predicted Q2 2013 shipments of 14.6m units (down from 19.5m in Q1 2013) due to a lack of March product launches, as do 2nd and 3rd ranking vendors Samsung (8.1m units) and Asus (2.0m).
"A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors," IDC says. "With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that's likely to continue into Q3 2013. However, by Q4 2013 we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market."
Some vendors still manage to see growth-- Lenovo shipments grow by an impressive 313.9% Y-o-Y to 1.5m units, allowing to company to take 4th place in the vendor rankings with 3.3% market share.
Meanwhile Acer sees 136.6% Y-o-Y growth on shipments of 1.4m units.
"The tablet market is still evolving and vendors can rise and fall quickly as a result," the analyst concludes. "Apple aside, the remaining vendors are still very much figuring out which platform strategy will be successful over the long run. To date, Android has been far more successful than the Windows 8 platform. However, Microsoft-fueled products are starting to make notable progress into the market."