Of all the different consumer tech divisions, we least expected to see the tablet market grow at a time of grave global economic suffering and instability. That’s because tablet sales have been on the decline around the world for almost as long as this writer can remember, and it was certainly hard to anticipate that trend could be suddenly reversed as non-essential spending took a big hit for many people across key markets like the US due to the coronavirus pandemic.

These include “sufficient production capacities”, “rush orders” deferred from the year’s second quarter, and “re-stocking demand from channel operators”, all of which strongly suggest COVID-19 is no longer a problem, at least as far as manufacturers and retailers are concerned.

In terms of what consumers might be seeking in these troubled times, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear large models measuring at least 10 inches in screen diagonal are considerably outselling compact 7 and 8-inchers, although Amazon is tipped to single-handedly boost the latter segment during Q3 “thanks to seasonal effects.”

In other words, the e-commerce giant’s in-house Fire slates are likely to prove significantly more popular in the three months ending September than the April – June timeframe, which could be enough to lift the company ahead of Huawei on the worldwide vendor podium.