Apple Had To Knock Off Over $200 On The New iPad To Keep The Tablet Dream Alive

Apple in addition to the red iPhone 7 also launched a new iPad ion Tuesday with a starting price at $329 in a bid to boost sales. Here are some features of the new tablet;

• Display: 9.7-inch Retina display
• Battery: Up to 10 hours of battery life
• Processor: 64‑bit A9 chip
• Camera: 8-megapixel camera versus 12-megapixel for the iPad Pro which went on sale in November 2015
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi and LTE
• Operating system: iOS 10
• Security: Touch ID fingerprint sensor
• Availability: March 24

Compared to the iPad Pro models which start at $599, the new iPad is cheaper and the reason might not be farfetched. While Apple still leads its rivals in the tablet market, a report says the entire tablet market as reported by declined 12.3% (in the second quarter of 2016) year over year from 44.1 million units shipped to 38.7 million as Samsung sales continued to decline even further. Apple held a 25.8 percent market share compared to Samsung’s 6 percent in the same quarter.

But research company Strategy Analytics came out with its own analysis of tablet market in the third quarter of 2015 vis-à-vis 2016 and here’s what they had to say;

• Apple iOS shipments (sell-in) fell 6% annually at 9.3 million iPads in Q3 2016 leaving it with a worldwide market share of 20% of the Tablet market. Meanwhile, ASPs climbed 6% year-on-year to $459 as a higher mix of premium Pro devices boosted revenue.
• Android-branded vendors shipped 30.1 million units among them worldwide in Q3 2016, down 17% from 36.0 million a year earlier and down 1% sequentially. Market share has fallen to 65% as high growth of Windows tablet shipments squeeze Android tablets.
• Windows shipments grew 25% year-on-year at 7.3 million units in Q3 2016, from 5.8 million in Q3 2015, reaching 16% market share.