Mixed Results for Business Smartphone & Tablet Shipments in Q2 2015

Laptop-to-tablet migrations drive tablet deployments among enterprises, with corporate-liable devices on the rise

Boston, MA -** October 13, 2015 **– Shipments of business smartphones and tablets had mixed results in Q2 2015, with smartphone shipments declining from Q1 to Q2 2015, while quarter-over-quarter tablet shipments grew, according to Strategy Analytics. Business smartphone shipments reached 89.3 million in Q2, down 3% from Q1 2015, but up 16% from the same quarter a year ago. While tablets had slumped the past few quarters, they were up 2% in Q2 from Q1 at 19.6 million units. In both business markets, personal-liable, or “bring-your-own-device” (BYOD), is still the dominant type of device, accounting for over two thirds of device shipments in each respective category.

Android was the dominant mobile operating system for both smartphones and tablets in Q2, accounting for 65% and 52% of each respective market. Apple iOS devices accounted for 28% of business smartphone shipments and 38% of tablet shipments. Microsoft accounted for 6% of the business smartphones shipments in Q2 and 10% of tablets — breaking the double-digit mark in terms of business tablet shipment share for the first time. Strong shipment growth of Microsoft’s Surface tablet — 42% from Q1-Q 2015 — contributed to this.

“Many enterprises in Q2 were hesitant on investing in large, new deployments of tablets and phones, as new device announcements from corporate-favorite vendors such as Apple and Microsoft were on the horizon,” says Phil Hochmuth, directory of Mobile Workforce Strategies research at Strategy Analytics. “Going forward, we predict enterprises will continue to roll out tablets as laptop replacements for certain groups of employees, as well as for more single-purpose functions, such as kiosks and point-of-sale devices, which will be corporate-owned. This will mean a slight shift away from the BYOD model of tablets to a more corporate-liable model. Although the majority of smartphones and tablets in businesses will still be personal-liable in the near-term.”

Asia Pacific was the largest market for business smartphones in Q2, accounting for 50% of worldwide business smartphone shipments. North America was the second largest market at 23%. In Both APAC and North America, BYOD is the domain device type, with nearly three quarters of all shipments in both markets being persona-liable devices. In Western Europe in Q2, the third largest business smartphone market at 11% of total shipments, corporate-liable smartphones continue to be the norm, as 62% of smartphones shipped in the region were company-owned.