Apple has announced its new M1-equipped iPad Pro. It’s more powerful than its immediate predecessor and costs anywhere between $799 and $1,099, with additional storage options available. But who is buying such a device in 2021 and beyond? As it turns out, the tablet industry is booming right now.
After impressive growth in the first half of the last decade, tablet sales have fallen drastically since. Between customers keeping their tablets longer than their phones and phone screens getting bigger, the demand for tablets peaked somewhere around 2014.
But data collected by IDC suggests that sales picked up in 2020 as people were working and learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in 2019, after 230.1 million units shipped in 2014, that number fell to a mere 144.5 million. Then 164.1 million units sold in 2020, opening the way for Apple’s new iPad Pro.
And make no mistake: Apple dominates the tablet market, so increases in tablet sales means increases in iPad sales. The release of the 2020 iPad and iPad Air helped Apple ship 19 million tablets in the last three months of the year, allowing Cupertino to command 36.5% of the market.
Overall, Apple shipped 53.2 million iPads in 2020, which outpaces the 47.3 million units sold by Apple’s two largest competitors combined. While Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo all saw their numbers jump this past year, it’s clear that Apple dominates the tablet market and controls its future.
