Gearbest Tech
【Gearbest】In 2023, the tablet industry and major manufacturers ushered in a new wave of challenges. After 2020, the demand for online learning and online office work increased dramatically, which objectively promoted the growth of the tablet market, and the industry has therefore embarked on a growth path that has lasted for several years. However, this situation changed in 2023. On the one hand, the social demand for online learning and online office work began to disappear, which will undoubtedly affect the sales of tablets. On the other hand, the previous few years of continuous growth have to some extent overdrawn the long-term potential of the tablet market, and the tablet market may be affected by this for a long time in the future.
According to a research report by IDC, in the first quarter of 2023, China's tablet computer market shipments were about 6.69 million units, less than the same period in 2022. Among them, China's tablet consumer market was basically the same as the same period last year, but the commercial market fell by 12.7% year-on-year. At the same time, the market share of Huawei and Apple, the two major tablet manufacturers in the Chinese market, has declined compared with the same period in 2022. In addition, in the first quarter of 2023, mainstream manufacturers have successively launched more cost-effective products in response to changes in market demand, which has accelerated the popularization of the Chinese tablet computer market while also driving the average unit price of tablet products to further drop by about 4.4%.
In short, China's tablet market is “declining” and “involution” at the same time. However, I don't know if you have noticed that in the Android tablet market, there are not many manufacturers participating in the 8-inch tablet category. Currently, manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo do not have 8-inch tablets on sale. Although Honor has an Honor X7, it is not a popular product. With the increasingly fierce competition in the industry, this seems to have become a blue ocean in the market.
The ones who roll around die, the ones who are idle die
Currently, mobile phone manufacturers are the main players in the tablet market. If Apple is not considered for the time being, Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other mainstream domestic mobile phone manufacturers all have a large number of tablets on sale. At the same time, as the world's largest PC manufacturer, Lenovo has also entered the mobile phone market (through the Motorola brand) and the tablet market. In addition to these large manufacturers, there are also domestic copycat tablet manufacturers such as Cube and Teclast that have existed for more than ten years and still rely on the mid-to-low-end and entry-level markets to survive.
After carefully combing through the products of several major manufacturers, Gearbest found that before 2023, the screen sizes of tablets from Huawei, Lenovo, Honor, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other manufacturers are around 10 inches to 11 inches. For example, Huawei's MatePad currently only has two different screen sizes of 11 inches and 10.4 inches. The screen size of most products in the Xiaomi Tablet 5 series and Xiaomi Tablet 6 series is also 11 inches. The same is true for OPPO Pad, OPPO Pad Air and vivo Pad. Many of these products overlap in positioning, and the competition between them is very sharp.
However, this situation is also changing. Recently, the author has noticed that these manufacturers have signs of shifting the main market of competition to larger screen sizes. In the second half of 2022, the Xiaomi Tablet 5 series ushered in a 12.4-inch version of the model. In recent months, products such as iQOO Pad, Lenovo Y900, Red Magic Gaming Tablet, Honor MagicPad, etc. are all equipped with large 12-inch or 13-inch screens. From this point of view, the continued enlargement of the screen seems to be one of the main development directions of Android tablets.
8-inch tablets regain attention
Even though these big companies have strong capabilities, sometimes the market development may go against their predictions. When large-size Android tablets over 10 inches are popular, I noticed that small-size Android tablets of 8 inches seem to be quietly regaining attention.
In 2022, Lenovo brought a new 8-inch gaming tablet-Savior Y700. This product belongs to the “Savior” brand and is born with a strong gaming gene. With the powerful Snapdragon 870 mobile platform and a number of designs and functions optimized for gaming scenarios, the Y700 has achieved good results in the market in 2022. And now, Lenovo is about to bring a brand new 2023 Y700. Like the previous model, the screen size of the new Y700 is still about 8 inches, and it will be released on July 22, mainly for gamers. Of course, these products are mainly concentrated in the mid-range and mid-to-high-end markets. In the low-end market, signs of the rise of small-sized tablets seem to be more obvious, and here is the stage for domestic copycat manufacturers.
In May this year, the domestic copycat tablet manufacturer Cube released an 8.4-inch tablet called “iPlay50 mini”. It has weak performance (UNISOC T606 processor, AnTuTu score of about 200,000 points), average battery life (4000 mAh battery), and mediocre charging (10W charging, even Apple is better than it). However, with the initial price of 499 yuan, iPlay50 mini successfully became popular during this year's 618. On some social platforms dominated by digital enthusiasts, this product is even more popular than models from major manufacturers. Now, the upgraded version of iPlay50 mini with upgraded performance, memory and battery life has been officially released at the urging of countless netizens. Obviously, Cube has tasted the sweetness of its 8-inch tablet products.
The next market growth point
As mentioned before, the current tablet market is facing great pressure, and this market has just ended a wave of growth, so it may be more difficult to recover than the mobile phone industry. In this case, manufacturers are bound to expand into more markets. Launching more large-size tablets and expanding the main products from 11 inches to larger sizes is a sign. Therefore, I believe that sooner or later these manufacturers will turn their attention to the 8-inch market, which is now attracting more and more consumers.
Who will be the first big company to take action? I think it may be Huawei or Xiaomi. Among them, Huawei's M series tablets were once an important player in the 8-inch tablet market, but Huawei currently does not have any M series tablets on sale, and its latest generation model seems to be the Huawei M6. Similar to Huawei, Xiaomi once launched the Xiaomi Tablet 4 series, and the standard version of the model is also an 8-inch tablet. But it should be noted that both the Huawei M6 and the Xiaomi Tablet 4 are relatively old models, which can be seen from their processors. The processor of the Huawei M6 is the Kirin 980, and the processor of the Xiaomi Tablet 4 is the Snapdragon 660…
In addition, considering that 8-inch tablets are mostly mid-range and entry-level products, it seems possible that brands such as Honor and Redmi will also focus on this field. But before the real products arrive, no one can predict how the situation will be.
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