Only 42.84 million units will be released in the second quarter, which is admittedly the slow season anyway – vendors don’t make orders for the new products until closer to launch in the third quarter. But it looks like the shipment volume for the second quarter will drop only 7.9 per cent on year. This is still an improvement from the previous quarters' over 10 per cent drops, but then there is not a hell of a lot lower it could go.

Apple iPad shipments are estimated to reach 11.1 million units. This is up 8.8 per cent sequentially but includes the iPad Pro and the newly slashed iPad Air 2's price cut.

China’ white-box vendors such as Spreadtrum's 3G tablets are sucking up a big chunk of the market. The Cherry Trail-based Windows tablet reference design is mature and able to replace existing Bay Trail-CR gear. Many white-box vendors are preparing to launch Windows 2-in-1 devices in the second quarter, Digitimes said.

Most of the first-tier vendors are focusing on profitability and have lost interest in market share. As a result their combined shipments are expected to drop 12.2 per cent sequentially to reach only 16.14 million units.

Samsung is not as aggressive as it was in the same quarter a year ago in developing new tablet products. Lenovo and Asustek are both aggressively developing new products and will release new Android and Microsoft Surface-like products, Digitimes said.