Tablets were exploding in the years following the release of Apple’s first iPad, spawning much talk of the inevitable death of the desktop. However, now that the initial clamor has died down and every company has cut itself a piece of the pie, the tablet market is starting to shrink.
Despite new tablet launches and the holiday shopping season, tablet sales fell in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to new data from market research firm IDC. That’s hardly surprising, since Apple revealed last week that it sold 21.4 million iPads during the holiday quarter, down from 26 million during the same period in 2013. Apple isn’t alone: four out of the top five players in the tablet market saw a drop in sales year-over-year in the final quarter. Lenovo was the only company to buck the trend.
