The corona virus caused a surge in tablet demand in China

While China is still at the center of an corona virus outbreak, causing the economy to stagnate, there is one type of mobile device that is benefiting from the outbreak: are tablets.

A recent report from Digitimes shows that the demand for tablets in the Chinese market has skyrocketed due to the corona outbreak, which has led to a sharp increase in the demand for home study and work. Meanwhile, production activities of equipment assemblers are still stalled due to the shortage of raw materials, components as well as labor.

Earlier to prevent the spread of the virus, many office workers in China had to work from home. Some schools also launch home-based online courses for students, causing tablet demand to rise unexpectedly during the low season of the shopping season.

E-commerce platforms also benefit from this demand as most shopping stores have not returned to normal operation. Moreover, when these tablets were out of stock at most e-commerce platforms, their prices also increased.

Currently, these platforms in China are selling 10.2-inch versions of the iPad with a price of 2,499 yuan ($ 355.5) for 32GB, 3,099 yuan ($ 441) for 128GB. . This price is 200 yuan and 100 yuan higher respectively than the Apple store.

Industry sources believe that when the majority of ODM assemblers are operating at only half of their maximum capacity, tablet supply will be in short supply.

Currently, most of Huawei's tablets are manufactured by Wingtech, Longcheer and Huaqin, with most new factories only reaching 50-60% of capacity. As for Apple's iPads, which are assembled by Compal Electronics and Taiwan's Foxconn at factories in Chengdu, China, their factories are only operating at around 30% of capacity.

According to a report by Digitimes Research, global tablet shipments in the first quarter of 2020 will decrease by 20% compared to the same period last year, to 28.56 million units.

Refer to Digitimes