Blame the iPad for the crash in tablet sales

Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly told the tech industry blog Re/code this week that tablet sales have “crashed” this year, after several years of spectacular growth. And he said that PC sales are rising after being in the doldrums for several years. Other data shows a similar pattern: flat iPad sales just reported by Apple, tablet sales declines and PC sales upswings reported by most analysts that track computer sales, and — most telling — increasing price reductions by discount-averse Apple both at its online store for older iPad models and through “this weekend only” $100-off deals at Best Buy and other retailers.

By all appearances, the world has come to its senses and realized it no longer wants faddy tablets (of which the iPad is the poster child), but good ol’ laptops and desktop PCs instead. The torrid, four-year love affair with the iPad is over. Right? Sorry, but that’s not what’s going on.

Why would you replace your old iPad? It’s true that iPad sales (like tablet sales in general) have flattened and even declined. For four years, people have been buying the devices because it satisfied a need they didn’t know they had until the iPad debuted. But such void-filling can only be a temporary phenomenon because the void does get filled, which is the big reason tablet sales are no longer skyrocketing. That’s a duh.

On top of that, I’ve previously noted that the recent iPad models lack a certain “gotta have it” quality, and Best Buy’s Joly blames the “crash” in tablet sales squarely on the lack of serious innovation in the Apple and various Android tablets. Tablet owners — which mostly means iPad owners in the United States — don’t need to replace their old ones because their old ones are still quite good.

It’s true: I’ve skipped the fourth-gen iPad and iPad Air because my third-gen iPad from 2011 runs perfectly well. My husband’s 2010 iPad 2 does the same, though it’s starting to show its age in its slower performance under iOS 7.

If you use an Android tablet, the same reality applies: The newest models aren’t appreciably better than the old ones that you’ll want to spend $500 to $1,000 for a replacement. That’s my boss’s conclusion and why he hasn’t replaced his 2012-model Android tablet either. Ditto for a friend who loves his 2012-model Nexus 7.

Whether Android or iPad, the newest models are great — the iPad Air‘s light weight is compelling, and the Galaxy Tab S has a delightful display — but the older models are also great or at least great enough.

Tablets aren’t quite at the point of PCs, where you can’t really tell the difference from one model year to the next; that faster processor doesn’t boost performance like it used to in, say, the 1990s. But tablets are getting more like PCs in that innovation is slowing. Until there’s a major leap forward in tablet technology, the truth is that people who want or need tablets likely already have one that does the job well.

Because the iPad defined the modern tablet and pushed the category forward — the truth is that Android tablets simply copy whatever Apple does a few months later — it’s also the iPad’s fault that tablet sales have stalled or crashed by not creating enough compelling reason for replacement purchases.

Yes, the recent Apple-IBM deal will further boost iPad sales in businesses, where they make perfect sense as an adjunct device for many desk workers and a primary device for many field workers. However, the overall downward trend will persist until the masses of people who already own iPads and Android tablets — the several hundred million of them — begin replacing their tablets.

No, PC sales are not rebounding At the same time, an apparent uptick in PC sales to both businesses and individuals this spring is being heralded as a rebound for the PC industry, which has seen its sales decline for several years in a row. That decline has two causes: Money diverted to the iPad and other tablets, and a deep dislike of Windows 8 by both individuals and businesses. The recession of 2006-2010 only exacerbated the sales decline. A large number of old PCs are starting to show their age, making further replacement delays painful.

Microsoft’s discontinuation of Windows XP support in April also spurred some companies and individuals to replace their old PCs, as Best Buy’s Joly notes. But if you look at the data, PC sales have not really gone up. Sales of Apple’s Macs have in fact increased, but not of Windows PCs. Both Gartner and IDC say the rate of decline for PC sales has slowed, mainly due to the end-of-XP replacements. Sales dropped 10 percent in 2013 and are on track to drop by “only” 3 percent in 2014. Best Buy may have seen an uptick in PC sales (which includes Macs) in its stores, but not the market as a whole.

Here’s the truth: A slowdown in the rate of decline is not a rise in sales. PC sales are still on a downward trend, and tablet sales are still expected to surpass PC sales in 2015. So much for a tablet crash or a PC resurgence.

It’s a fact that tech sales data is notoriously slippery. Gartner, IDC, IHS iSupply, and Kantar Worldwide frequently publish contradictory findings, mainly because they rely on different sources for their sales data. (IDC and Gartner are particularly and regularly wrong about Mac sales.)

Some of those sources don’t distinguish between devices sold to stores (“shipped” devices) and those sold to actual customers (“sold” devices). Some vendors manipulate their channel strategies to look better in such reports, usually by stuffing the channel for several quarters with extra shipments to stores — and not reporting the returns or unsold units until they have to, in the separate financial statements they provide stockholders months later.

But even with these channel manipulations and variable data sources, the overall patterns are clear: PCs aren’t a growth market, and tablets are becoming more like PCs in their sales patterns.

You can blame the iPad for both patterns: It’s reduced the need for new PCs, and it’s struggling to create new need for new iPads. But I have much more faith in Apple finding ways to get more people to buy iPads in the future, and even replace them more often, than I do the PC industry.

This article, “Blame the iPad for the crash in tablet sales,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.