Well, here’s a piece of news that came from the left field: turns out that Huawei surpassed Apple for the first time on the Chinese tablet market. That happens during the pandemic and it should also be taken into account that China’s tablet market dropped 30% in Q1 2020 compared to last year.
Online education contributed to the swap in tablet segment leadership and choosing cheaper and local made products sounded better for education bigshots. The figures about the Chinese tablet market come from research firm IDC, so we tend to believe they’re legit. Huawei registered a tablet shipment growth by 4.3% year on year, in the quarter ending on March 31st and reaching 1.5 million units. It’s the only big player in China that registered positive growth in that time frame, according to IDC.
Huawei surpassed Apple to become number 1 in China, with a 40.2% market share. Apple had 35.1%, losing the lead after a massive drop of 42.5% year on year in unit sales. Aside from the pandemic, the growing anti American sentiment in China on account of the Huawei sanctions definitely has something to do with this. The IDC report also shows that Xiaomi, Microsoft and Lenovo had sales drops in Q1. They accounted for 5.5%, 3.2% and 1.7% of the tablet market in China.
China’s tablet segment could recoup soon, as opportunities have risen for online education and work. In the first 10 days after the Lunar Near Year, tablet sales on JD.com increased 77% on year. Apple is expected to recover as well over the following months.
