High demand in healthcare, education sectors push tablet shipments up by 68% YoY

India shipped 68% more tablets in the first quarter of 2022 than a year ago on the back of strong demand from hybrid workers, students and the healthcare sector, CyberMedia Research (CMR) said in its latest report, published May 16. Shipment of value-for -money tablets (₹10,000 to ₹20,000) grew at 155% year-on-year (YoY).  

Cellular tablets with 4G support accounted for 66% of the overall shipments, growing at 74% YoY. At 2%, the share for 5G tablets is still quite small, however, CMR expects it to play a key role in the future along with the entry of new vendors such as Xiaomi and the expected entry of BBK brands Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus. CMR analysts anticipate the tablet market in 2022 to grow at 10-12%. CMR didn’t share the volume of tablet shipments during the quarter. 

“The continuous rise and ebb of the Covid-19 cases, many of the sectors are persisting with hybrid or remote work. This is continuing to fuel the adoption of tablets for work, e-learning, and content consumption use cases,” said Menka Kumari, analyst, Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR.  

According to Kumari, education and healthcare were two of the key sectors where tablet demand has been growing.  

Tablets used in healthcare are mostly Lenovo and Samsung's value for money tablets (around ₹20,000) and used for tracking and monitoring patient data. 

This is no surprise as adoption of digital technologies for remote monitoring in healthcare has increased after the pandemic.  

Further, the report shows that big screen tablets with 10-inch or higher screen size were in more demand with 61% of the share while the share of 8-inch tablets was 26%. 

Among suppliers of these tablets, Lenovo, Apple and Samsung continue to lead the shipments, together accounting for 80% of the market as compared to 90% a year ago. The entry of Realme, Xiaomi, and launches by Indian brand Lava have dented the market share of the top three vendors. Realme and Lava were the other two vendors in the top five.  

Kumari points out, with new market entrants such as Xiaomi with its Pad 5, the tablet market in India is going to gain strength.  

The potential arrival of Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus will present consumers with more choices, she added.  

Lenovo’s market share has dropped from 41% in the first quarter of 2021 to 36% in the first quarter of 2022. Apple too saw its share fall from 29% a year ago to 22% during the same period. Samsung’s market share grew from 20% to 22% in the first quarter of 2022.  

According to CMR, Lenovo’s shipments were largely driven by demand from the commercial segment and retail market. One of its tablets, the Lenovo Tab M8 (HD) with Wi-Fi and 4G, accounted for 32% market share in the ₹7,000- ₹25,000 segment. Though Apple launched several new tablets last November, the Apple iPad 9 (Wi-Fi) was the key driver for growth accounting for 45% of the tablet market share. For Samsung, the launch of new tablets that support 5G helped.  

Kumari believes the use of tablets in the commercial and government sector will continue to gain strength to support e-governance.