Tablet Sales Slowdown Comes Sooner Than Expected

Between the iPad and its rivals, the tablet computer has become one of the most successful consumer electronic products ever. Apple has sold more than 210 million iPads since the device’s 2010 debut, about double the rate of iPhone sales in its first four years. The boom has helped the electronics industry make up for the drop in sales of desktop and laptop PCs. Suddenly, though, the market is slowing down.

Apple reported that iPad sales dropped by one-sixth last quarter from the same period a year earlier, and Microsoft said revenue from its Surface tablet, not robust to begin with, dropped about 40 percent after the holiday season. Amazon.com doesn’t break out sales, but according to researcher Gartner, it hasn’t moved up the market-share charts. Global tablet sales rose 19 percent in the first quarter, propelled by purchases of cheap models in emerging markets, but that’s paltry compared with growth of 83 percent during the same period last year and more than 100 percent during that period in 2012 and 2011, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.