Consumer tablet shipments in India posted a sharp decline of 26.8% in Q2 2017 when compared to the same period last year, according to research firm IDC’s Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker report. On a QoQ basis, consumer shipments were down by 13.8%. The introduction of India’s new tax regime (GST) has affected both consumer and vendor mentality, leading to lower consumer demand for two consecutive quarters. “Uncertainty about the levy of the new tax structure, restricted the stocking of inventory and in turn leading to limited sell-in of tablets,” IDC said in its report. Decline in consumer shipment was predicted by IDC in November last year itself. While releasing its Q4 2016 report, it said that demonetization would bring down tablet sales. This turned out to be true as consumer tablet shipments declined sharply by 28% YoY in Q1 2017. Prior to demonetization in Q3 2016, the Indian tablet industry shipped 1.06 million units—the first time in FY 2016 that the tablet shipments had crossed the 1 million mark. Overall shipments numbers Overall, including the commercial segment, India’s tablet industry shipped 722,000 units, up 2.9% QoQ from 701,000 units in Q1 2017. The overall (commercial+consumer) sequential growth was due to an increase in demand in the commercial segment, IDC said. “Digital projects across government and education sectors are the key driving verticals for the growth of the commercial sector,” the research firm added in its report. IDC did not share tablet category-wise data in this quarter. In the previous quarter,…
