Worldwide tablet plus 2-in-1 shipments slipped to 50.4 million units in Q1, according to preliminary data from IDC. The total represents a sequential decline of 35.7 percent from the high-volume holiday quarter and just 3.9 percent growth over the same period a year ago. The slowdown was felt across operating systems and screen sizes and likely points to an even more challenging year ahead for the category.
“The rise of large-screen phones and consumers who are holding on to their existing tablets for ever longer periods of time were both contributing factors to a weaker-than-anticipated quarter for tablets and 2-in-1s,” said Tom Mainelli, IDC Program Vice President, Devices and Displays. “In addition, commercial growth has not been robust enough to offset the slowing of consumer shipments.”
Apple maintained its lead in the worldwide tablet plus 2-in-1 market, shipping 16.4 million units. That’s down from 26.0 million units in the previous quarter and well below its total of 19.5 million units in Q1 of 2013. Despite the contraction, the company saw its share of the market slip only modestly to 32.5 percent, down from the previous quarter’s share of 33.2 percent.

Even as mobile broadband modems and hotspot router shipments fell 21 percent year-on-year to nearly 73 million units, Huawei continued to lead the market with nearly 61 percent share. Together with fellow China company ZTE, the pair shipped more than 85 percent of all mobile broadband modems, according to ABI Research.
Apacer has launched the SATA 3 SFD 25H-M SSD, which features up to 1TB capacity with really fast sequential read/write speed of 510/420MB/second.
High ownership of smartphones, tablets and phablets in Hong Kong have been positively impacting sales of complementary products such as headphones and headsets, as well as mini-speakers, according to GfK.
Samsung has opened its largest Samsung Experience Store at Westgate in Singapore. The 6,027-square foot standalone triplex store will provide give those staying in the western part of Singapore access to Samsung’s latest range of products with infotainment and educational content as well as in-store dining options.
Global PC shipment dipped 1.7 percent to 76.6 million units Q1, compared to the same period last year, according to apreliminary results by Gartner.
NVIDIA has released new drivers built on DirectX11 to offer enhanced performance, a version of GeForce Experience packed with new features, and an over-the-air (OTA) software upgrade for SHIELD.


GSMA has completed its second Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) Optimisation project in Pakistan, working in conjunction with mobile operator Warid Telecom and systems integrator Cascadiant.


NetApp has introduced a new line of enterprise storage systems and enhanced software designed to accelerate the broadest range of virtualised applications.
More than 85,000 visitors from 201 countries attended Mobile World Congress (MWC), which ended yesterday. This is a record for the mobile industry event, which saw many new product launches and announcements.

Dr Paul E Jacobs, Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm, has been named the recipient of the 2014 GSMA Chairman’s Award. Established in 1995, the award recognises outstanding personal contribution to the growth and development of mobile communications around the world.
Fancy a slimmer Samsung Galaxy Tab? Samsung has rolled out the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite (7.0”) WiFi, which sports a slim, lightweight design with a more compact bezel that makes it comfortable to carry around in one hand.
Tablet shipment grew 65.2 percent year-on-year to
Samsung Electronics is the world’s top semiconductor buyer, and together with second placed Apple, increased their combined semiconductor demand by 17 percent in 2013, according to Gartner.
Huawei has taken a shot at the English Premier League by becoming the official smartphone partner of league leaders Arsenal.
Companies worldwide are quickly realising that mobile has not only changed digital operations, but that it will fundamentally change entire businesses in decades to come, according to Forrester Research.
NVIDIA unveiled at CES the Tegra K1 mobile processor, a 192-core super chip featuring the same NVIDIA Kepler architecture that powers the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti. For the first time, next-generation PC gaming will now be available on mobile platforms.
Telecom New Zealand has launched a new 4G LTE network that can provide speeds of up to 150 Mb/s to mobile subscribers in parts of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
