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The first quarter of the year was once again a tough time for tablet buying. Although consumers tend to take a shopping break after the holidays, buying plans remain soft at this point in the year relative to historical levels. A key reason behind this dour outlook is that consumers are keeping their devices longer, and there aren’t enough new tablet buyers in the market to offset the number of current owners delaying upgrades.
This report presents the findings of a recent study conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research, which asked US consumers about current tablet, desktop and laptop ownership, as well as customer satisfaction and purchasing plans.
Tablet buying intent remains sluggish
For the second consecutive year, our Q1 survey finds just 30% of consumers planning to buy a tablet in the future. While this is consistent with Q1 2024, it is well below the 38% figure in Q1 2023. Also, for the second straight year, the survey shows a drop in purchasing plans among higher-income households (greater than $100,000 per year; 35%; down 7 points). Lower-income households (less than $50,000 per year; 29%; up 1 point) remain level compared to last year.
Upgrade cycles continue to lengthen
When we asked respondents how often they replace their tablets, only 10% said they tend to do so within two years, down for the second year in a row — an indication of still-lengthening replacement cycles. The survey shows a 5-percentage-point drop in the subset of consumers who say they typically refresh their tablet within five years of purchasing (31%, down from 36% in Q1 2024), marking a steep decline from 53% in Q1 2023.
Device refreshes are the main driver of tablet sales
Overall, 30% of respondents say they plan to buy a tablet. However, among those who already own a tablet, the percentage of planned buyers jumps to 40%. Among non-owners, planned buying falls to just 20%. This illustrates that the tablet market is more dependent on current users upgrading to new devices than on increasing the number of new tablet users.
Stability persists among market leaders
The tablet market remains dominated by Apple (44%), Samsung (22%) and Amazon (19%), with a huge falloff before fourth-place Lenovo (3%). The fact that consumers are holding onto their devices longer helps to further entrench these leading tablet manufacturers. These top brands are among those with the highest percentage of owners saying they typically hold onto their device for at least five years. Apple (41%) has the highest proportion among this trio, followed by Amazon (36%) and Samsung (31%). Interestingly, all three of these percentages are higher year over year, which solidifies these brands’ dominant market positions since smaller competitors experience more frequent churn and in larger numbers.
Apple stands tall in satisfaction
Apple remains the leader in tablet satisfaction, with 68% of current owners saying they are very satisfied with their iPads, followed by Microsoft (64%), Samsung (60%) and Amazon (56%). Notably, despite having exited the tablet market years ago, devices from Dell (61%) and HP (61%) still get high marks from those who continue to use the older models.
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