Three Chinese tablet brands have all enjoyed dramatic growth over the past year as they try to compete with the market-leading iPad. While even their combined shipments can’t compete, their growth rate suggests they could become a threat within a year or two.
However, iPadOS 26 looks set to change the game significantly, making it harder than ever for competing brands to catch up …
The iPad dominates the tablet market
The iPad launched way back in 2010, and dominated the tablet market ever since, despite its premium pricing. Indeed, there are indications that the iPad Pro models actually outsell the cheaper ones.
Samsung has long been the only serious competition, though it currently sits at less than half of Apple’s market share, at 17% against Apple’s 36%.
But Chinese brands are enjoying rapid growth
However, the latest market intelligence report from Canalys shows that three Chinese brands are all enjoying dramatic growth year on year.
- Huawei: 29.2%
- Lenovo: 24.7%
- Xiaomi: 42.3%
Seen above is the Redmi Pad 2 from Xiaomi, a company which has created a career out of cloning Apple products.
However, even combined, they only hit a little over 9M shipments between them against 14M iPads. Additionally, most of the demand for Chinese tablets is in the domestic market, assisted by government subsidies.
Mobile gaming is a growing purchase driver
While mobile gaming on tablets remains a relatively niche activity, Canalys does say that this is one of the factors driving strong growth.
The market benefited from a wave of new product launches, particularly in the gaming segment. Growing consumer interest in this use case has seen gaming tablets emerge as a niche growth category, especially in Asia. Notable releases included Xiaomi’s Redmi K Pad (8.8”) and Vivo’s Pad5, while Lenovo’s Legion Tab shipments more than doubled quarter on quarter.
iPadOS 26 changes the game
Although other brands are gaining ground, iPadOS 26 is likely to drive significantly more iPad sales later in the year as the devices become more Mac-like in their capabilities. As I noted following the WWDC keynote:
The biggest change by far is proper windowing. The iPad started as a single-tasking device: one full-screen app at a time. Later, Slide Over and Split View made it possible to work with more than one app at a time, but it was pretty clunky and unintuitive. Stage Manager further improved usability, but for me it was still a poor substitute for the window flexibility you get on a Mac. But now the iPad works pretty much exactly like a Mac in this respect. You can open multiple apps, then position, size, and overlay each window as you like.
When it comes to growth in the latter part of the year, I know where I’d put my money.
Highlighted accessories
Photo: Xiaomi
