IDC expect coronavirus to hit EMEA tablet market in first half of 2020

Samsung and Apple dominated market share for Q4 2019

The overall EMEA tablet market declined 8.7 per cent in the final quarter of 2019 according IDC, who expect the coronavirus to hit the market further for the first half of this year.

In total 12.9 million units were shipped in Q4 last year, with Samsung (25.2 per cent market share) and Apple (23.8 per cent) leading the way with nearly half of all sales.

Huawei (9.5pc), Lenovo (8.2pc) and Amazon.com (5.5pc) all marginally grew share in the quarter too.

However IDC is expecting the COVID-19 outbreak to influence the market to contract by 7.3 per cent year on year (YoY) in the first half of 2020 in the EMEA region.

IDC initially anticipate a negative four percent drop in the market for the first quarter, with the second quarter likely to be hit harder.

IDC Western Europe personal computing senior research analyst Daniel Goncalves said: “It’s too early to assess the full extent of the impact of COVID-19 on the device market and particularly in tablets.

“On one hand there were factory shutdowns that compromised the production in February and quarantined areas that disrupted supply chains, as some key panel and memory manufacturers are located in the province where the outbreak took place.”

“On the other hand, 1Q is likely to be offset by the slow demand and the healthy inventory in components prior to the crisis.

“Nevertheless, there are clear signs that the negative impact won’t be able to be fully mitigated. Factories are not running at full capacity yet and Apple officially said it will not be meeting revenue goals due to the virus effect.”

Regions

Western Europe was the best performer of the regions in the fourth quarter of 2019, despite sales being down eight per cent YoY.

While Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa dropped 10 per cent YoY.