IDC finds that the refresh cycle of Surface and iPad will keep tablets market alive in the EMEA region

The EMEA tablet market reached 10.9 million units in the third quarter of the year, a drop of 8.2 percent on the same quarter last year, according to data from IDC. The contraction in consumer demand continues to be the main inhibitor of tablet adoption. 

As consumers lack compelling reasons to refresh their devices, life cycles continuously increase, leading to a market slowdown. However, the deployment of tablets in the commercial segments remains healthy, with a 4.2 percent year-on-year increase, due to the larger number of usage scenarios generated by digital transformation.

"In a quarter usually marked by seasonality, where there is a balance between the top two companies, Apple maintained and consolidated its market leadership," said Helena Ferreira, research analyst, IDC Western Europe Personal Computing Devices. "The growing market saturation is driving consolidation, as the top five companies become increasingly dominant, and in developed economies, like in Western Europe, the top five represented more than three-quarters of the market."   

The overall tablet market in Western Europe declined 6.0 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, while and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA) declined 12.0 percent year-on-year.

"Slate tablet shipments are continuing to drag down overall tablet results in both CEE and MEA, mostly due to the consumer consumption slowdown and significant drops in below-10in. tablets, due to stiff competition from large-screen smartphones," said Nikolina Jurisic, program manager, IDC CEMA.

Apple retained the market leadership in EMEA, ahead of its product refresh cycle. Samsung posted a double-digit decline, as the main focus is on pushing its prosumer S series and driving more profitability. Lenovo regained third position, filling the gap left by Huawei's decline. 

Huawei dropped to fourth and continues to suffer from the impact of the ban on consumer confidence. Amazon remained in the top 5 and continues to dominate the ultra-low-end price ranges, particularly during promotional periods such as Prime Day in the third quarter.

The EMEA tablet market is forecast to decline by 10.2 percent year-on-year in both the fourth quarter and for the whole year 2019. The dynamics affecting the market, particularly in the consumer segment, are expected to persist both in the consumer and in the commercial segments in the coming quarters.

"Despite the decline in total units shipped, the tier A vendors will sustain market value, particularly through the most recent iterations of iPad and Surface," said Daniel Goncalves, senior research analyst, IDC Western Europe Personal Computing Devices. "The new iPad with a first party keyboard and a new operating system designed to enhance productivity features in a tablet environment is expected to generate interest among prosumers and to continue boosting renewals of old tablets. On the other hand, the adoption of Surface Pro as a notebook replacement is expected to continue to thrive and to increasingly drive horizontal deployments in enterprise." 

The commercial market in EMEA is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 4.6 percent between 2019 and 2023.

"In the long run, the commercial segment is expected to grow due to the transition to mobility and growing user case scenarios for deploying tablets into businesses," said Jurisic.

PTC comes together with Magic Leap to boost capabilities of augmented reality in enterprises

PTC announced Tuesday an alliance with Magic Leap that will allow enterprise and industrial customers to combine the augmented reality (AR) capabilities of its Vuforia Engine solution with Magic Leap 1 wearable headset.

Vuforia Engine offers dynamic Object Recognition and can perceive images, 3D models and environments to provide development flexibility. The technology offered by Vuforia Engine lets developers freely build branded AR for new or existing applications.

Vuforia Engine provides users with advanced computer vision and cross-platform reach, and supports the broadest range of devices on the market. Beginning this month, PTC will offer Vuforia Engine to Magic Leap 1 customers, who will have access to the latest AR innovations of Vuforia Engine, including its differentiated artificial intelligence (AI) -based Model Target technology. 

The combination of this software with Magic Leap’s hardware and spatial computing technology will offer customers a value-rich solution for the enterprise.

“Industry leaders today need to have the flexibility to select the best hardware and software to fit their needs,” said Michael Campbell, EVP and GM, augmented reality products, PTC. “This collaboration enables our many industrial customers to pair our powerful AR software with equally powerful hardware.”

In the era of digital transformation, enterprises and industrial companies are turning to new technologies to help them prepare for shifting customer expectations, uncertain global trade, cost pressures, and workforce shortages. AR offers companies an innovative and effective way to connect people to digital content where and when they need it, thereby increasing efficiency, providing more-impactful training, and achieving greater overall cost savings.

“We’re excited to announce our collaboration with PTC,” said Omar Khan, chief product officer, Magic Leap. “The opportunity for AR across the enterprise is enormous, and we want all businesses to be able to leverage industry-leading technology that can enhance productivity throughout the digital workplace.”

Nokia Bell Labs prize awarded to new processor technology, pioneered by student and professor team from University of California at Berkeley

Nokia announced this year’s Nokia Bell Labs Prize, the global competition to recognize game-changing innovations that attracted more than 250 applications from 31 countries around the world. The 2019 prize has been awarded to a student and Professor team from the University of California at Berkeley. 

PhD student Tianshi Wang and Prof. Jaijeet Roychowdhury received US$100,000 for winning the competition, and the opportunity to pursue an expanded collaboration with Nokia Bell Labs. 

The pair won the prize for their work on “A Classic Spin on Quantum Computing." Their innovation is in a new type of processor element that will be significantly more efficient in computing the answers to discrete optimization problems. Their innovation will complement conventional digital processors (CPUs and GPUs) by tackling a variety of computationally hard problems of importance in many diverse areas, including 5G communication systems; complex tasks in planning, scheduling and control; and even the discovery of new drugs.

“The Bell Labs Prize is a unique opportunity for innovators around the world to collaborate with Bell Labs researchers to expand the potential of their innovations,” said Marcus Weldon, Nokia Corporate CTO and president of Nokia Bell Labs. “The competition is highly competitive, reducing more than 250 applicants to 5 finalists, who must convince their Bell Labs mentors and the judging panel that their innovation has the potential to change the world. This year’s winners have certainly met that criteria, by pioneering a new processor technology that will allow a large set of complex optimization problems to be solved with unprecedented efficiency and at low cost. It is truly impressive work and we will be closely collaborating with the team to help them realize this potential.”

The 2019 Nokia Bell Labs Prize competition was launched in April. Proposals were reviewed by Nokia Bell Labs researchers and evaluated based on three criteria, including whether the idea has a "10X innovation potential" to change the world; the proposal's technical merit; and the overall feasibility of the proposed idea.

The proposals were narrowed down to a select group of outstanding candidates who were given the opportunity to partner with Nokia Bell Labs experts to help expand the impact of their proposals. Five finalists were invited to the final judging event held this week at Nokia Bell Labs headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey. 

The judging panel was comprised of Weldon, Nobel Laureate Robert Wilson, world-renowned computer scientist and Bell Labs alum Al Aho, as well as previous Nokia Bell Labs Prize winners Samory Kpotufe (2018) and Kaushik Sengupta (2017).

Second place and $50,000 went to Dr. Sheng Xu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Nanoengineering at University of California at San Diego for his submission, “There is plenty of room under the skin: A wearable’s perspective.” His team have developed an easy-to-use ultrasonic patch that can provide noninvasive, continuous and unobtrusive monitoring of deep tissues. This innovation will not only impact consumers, who will have access to data on their hearts, lungs, livers, and GI tracts, but also healthcare systems allowing non-invasive continuous patient monitoring and ultrasonic imaging.

Third place and $25,000 were presented to Maximilian Arnold, Sebastian Cammerer, Sebastian Dörner, Stephan ten Brink of Stuttgart University in Germany for their innovative work on “Leveraging 5G Infrastructure for a Robust Positioning System.” Their indoor positioning system uses existing wireless communications networks to determine location which will allow ubiquitous, low cost tracking of all things, with simpler calibration than existing systems, and therefore has the potential to become a foundational part of the next industrial revolution.