During Apple's FY Q1 2024 (Calendar Q4 2023) conference call, Apple's CEO Tim Cook noted that "In iPad, revenue for the December quarter was $7 billion, down 25% year-over-year due to a difficult compare with the launch of the M2 iPad Pro and the 10th generation iPad during the December quarter last year and one less week of sales. iPad continues to push the boundaries of what's possible on a tablet."

This morning, a new analytical report covering both annual Global Tablet shipments for 2023 and specifically for Q4 2023 was posted by Canalys.  The global tablet shipments experienced a drop of 11% year-on-year in Q4 2023, totaling 37.8 million units. This resulted in a full-year 2023 figure of 135.3 million tablets shipped, a 10% decrease from 2022. China and India were key markets driving tablet adoption, helping to counter the prevailing stagnation in other parts of the world.

"The latest holiday season saw a significant surge in tablet promotions and bundled offers, but this wasn’t enough to reverse the market’s fortunes," said Himani Mukka, Research Manager at Canalys.

Himani Mukka, Research Manager at Canalys: "Aggressive promotional strategies have been implemented globally to address longstanding elevated tablet inventories. In certain markets in Asia Pacific, for example, there have been instances of old tablet models being bundled with newly launched smartphones to expedite inventory clearance."

"The innovation gap between tablets and other personal computing devices is something for key tablet vendors to pay attention to," said Kieren Jessop Analyst at Canalys. "Plans around on-device AI integration in tablets trail behind those in PCs and smartphones. Bringing this functionality across devices will be crucial for vendors aiming to deliver a unified and seamless experience on ecosystems.

Elsewhere, this year will see a greater focus on foldable tablet form factors. Although shipment volumes will likely remain restricted due to the premium pricing of these models, they will provide an opportunity for vendors to showcase user-experiences benefits for content consumption, learning and productivity.”

Apple maintained its leading position despite a 24% year-on-year decline, shipping 14.8 million iPads in the quarter. While their market share dropped from 46# in Q4 2022 to 39.2% in Q4 2023, it's still more than double Samsung who held 18% market share.

While Canalys attempted to pump-up Huawei in the quarter, the fact is that they only held 7.5% of the market. Apple's iPad held more than 5X Huawei's market share.  

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The second chart from the Canalys report below covers the final annual standings for tablets in 2023.

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