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Samsung angles for spot at heart of connected life
By Glenn CHAPMAN
San Francisco (AFP) April 28, 2016


In slumping tablet market, Apple still rules
Washington (AFP) April 28, 2016 - Global sales of tablet computers extended their slide in early 2016, with some bright spots at the low end of the market and more expensive "detachables," a survey showed Thursday.

Overall sales of tablets fell 14.7 percent in the first quarter to 39.6 million units, continuing a downward trend from 2015 when the once-hot market cooled, said the survey by research firm IDC.

Apple remained the top seller with a 25.9 percent market share, even though its iPad sales slumped 18.8 percent from a year ago, IDC said.

Samsung held the number two spot with a 15.2 percent market share, even as sales tumbled 28 percent.

Amazon jumped to number three, as its low-cost Fire tablets at prices as low at $50, saw a surge in sales.

While Amazon does not publish sales figures, IDC estimated it sold 2.2 million tablets in the quarter, a leap of 5,400 percent from a year ago, giving Amazon a 5.7 percent market share.

Chinese-based Lenovo and Huawei were fourth and fifth, with market shares of 5.5 and 5.2 percent, respectively.

IDC said the "slate" tablet still accounted for 87.6 percent of the market in the past quarter but that sales of laptops with detachable tablets more than doubled to 4.9 million units.

"The introduction of detachables from traditional smartphone vendors is only beginning and pose a real threat to traditional PC manufacturers," said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director for tablets at IDC.

"Their understanding of the mobile ecosystem and the volume achieved on their smartphone product lines will allow them to aggressively compete for this new computing segment. It is likely that those smartphone vendors will utilize the detachable segment to create new mobile computing end-user experiences if customers are using their detachables in combination with their smartphones."

The relatively strong performance by Apple was helped by the introduction of the latest iPad Pro 9.7-inch model, one of the new tablets with detachable keyboards, as well as a price drop for the iPad Air 2, the report said.

With the iPad Pro, Apple staked its claim to a market created by Microsoft with its Surface tablet, IDC said.

"Microsoft arguably created the market for detachable tablets with the launch of their Surface line of products," said IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani.

"With the PC industry in decline, the detachable market stands to benefit as consumers and enterprises seek to replace their aging PCs with detachables. Apple's recent foray into this segment has garnered them an impressive lead in the short term, although continued long-term success may prove challenging."

South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung on Thursday wooed app makers as it pursued a vision of being at the heart of life in a hyper-connected world.

"Coding is the key to the future," Samsung Electronics mobile communications business president Dongjin Koh said at the company's annual developers conference here.

"Software is everywhere."

Samsung executives depicted a future in which everything was connected with the Internet, and the company's platform, devices software and services were key parts of that scenario.

"We are already imagining the next step beyond the smartphone," Koh said.

Steps laid out at the conference included ramping Samsung's own Tizen operating system which has failed to gain momentum in a market dominated by free Google-backed Android software.

- Smartphone success -

Samsung is the world's leading maker of smartphones powered by Android.

The world's largest smartphone maker reported a better-than-expected jump in net profits Thursday, boosted by the successful early release of its new flagship Galaxy handset run by Android.

In an effort to defend its smartphone share, Samsung rolled out the latest version of its Galaxy S7 smartphone in March -- ahead of new launches by its competitors.

The strong Galaxy S7 performance came in the face of a flattening global smartphone market that saw arch-rival Apple on Tuesday report its first-ever drop in iPhone sales since launching the handset in 2007.

According to research firm IDC, the worldwide smartphone market saw its slowest growth on record of in the first quarter, expanding just 0.2 percent.

The more than 4,000 developers at the gathering in San Francisco were assured that Samsung's vision went far beyond smartphones to wearable computers, smart household devices, digital wallets, virtual reality and more.

"We can't do it alone," Koh said during a keynote presentation. "We need you."

- Heading for the 'holodeck' -

Samsung has a healthy "ecosystem" that is growing fast, executive vice president of research for software and services Injong Rhee said during the keynote.

"In the past five years, we have changed from a hardware company to a software company, I think," Rhee said.

And, by building its own Tizen platform, the company has the control to tightly integrate software, services, hardware, and security, he reasoned.

Bets being placed by Samsung included some on virtual reality, with the company fielding specially-designed cameras for capturing imagery, an online venue for content, and its Gear VR headsets that uses its smartphones as screens.

"Virtual reality is amazing, but the industry is still in its infancy," Rhee said.

"Remember the holodeck experience on 'Star Trek?' he asked rhetorically. "That is the kind of virtual reality we are trying to create."

Holodecks in the hit science fiction television and film series allowed people to move about and interact with virtual worlds as though they were real.

Samsung is working on wireless virtual reality devices that let people move about freely without necessarily relying on smartphones, according to Rhee.

gc/rl

Samsung


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