IDC released the Global Tablet PC Quarterly Tracking Report for the second quarter of 2021. The report shows that the tablet computer market slowed down slightly in the second quarter of 2021, but still maintained a year-on-year growth of 3.9%, with a total shipment of approximately 40.4 million units. In the first half of 2021, the global tablet computer market shipped 80.35 million units, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%.

The following are the details:

Although there are many challenges compared with the same period last year, the global tablet computer market still achieved year-on-year growth in the second quarter of 2021. According to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Global Personal Computing Device Quarterly Tracking Report, the growth rate of the tablet computer market has slowed slightly, but it still maintained a year-on-year growth of 3.9%, with a total shipment of approximately 40.4 million units. In the first half of 2021, the global tablet computer market shipped 80.35 million units, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%.

Compared with the global market, in the second quarter of 2021, China's tablet computer market shipped approximately 7.15 million units, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year, and continued to increase steadily. In the first half of 2021, the overall domestic market shipment volume was 13.4 million units, a year-on-year increase of 29.7%.

"Although there is still a shortage in the supply chain, there are still plenty of opportunities for tablets in the education market," said Anuroopa Nataraj, senior analyst of IDC's Global Mobile Device Tracking Project: "Online learning has achieved rapid development and has promoted the digital transformation of the education field. Although there is no single solution in the world, many emerging markets continue to increase the use of Android tablets, while schools in some developed markets such as the United States and Canada prefer Chromebooks. Nevertheless, as schools begin to transform to open platforms , Europe and some Asian countries have also seen the rise of Chromebooks recently."

Increase the differentiation of hardware. At present, most products on the market have severely homogenized hardware: the differences in chips, screens, and appearance materials are getting smaller and smaller, and their appeal to consumers is weakened. How to increase the differentiation of hardware, improve product recognition, and increase consumers' first attention will be more important.

Improve the software experience. The convergence of the hardware of various products will cause the competition between software and user experience to become the top priority. How to bring a better user experience, more convenient collaboration with other terminals, and richer application ecology will become the core competitiveness of future tablets.

Open up new usage scenarios. The demand for education driven by the epidemic has stabilized, and audio-visual entertainment is still the most important use scenario for individual consumers. Guiding users to explore new usage scenarios has once again become an important task for manufacturers and the key to the long-term existence of tablets in the future. For individual consumers, “productivity tools” are bound to re-emerge as the future development direction of flagship products. For government and corporate users, "digital transformation" will also bring more demand for tablets. In addition, as a portable display, a tablet computer may become a new use scenario when paired with a notebook computer.