With Apple’s Q3 earnings call this week revealing iPad sales of 13.3 million units for the quarter and Tim Cook making a point of defending the category, today we get a look at how Apple is doing overall with IDC’s latest numbers for worldwide tablet shipments.
While noting that tablet shipments worldwide grew 11% year-over-year, IDC’s numbers show that Apple was able to maintain its lead over Samsung with 26.9% of the market (down from 33% last year) compared to Samsung at 17.2% down from 18.8% the year before. Both lose share to other companies as the category reportedly experienced a lot of growth among smaller companies like Lenovo and Acer while the “others” category grew from 37% to 44% marketshare:
Despite declining shipments of its iPad product line, Apple managed to maintain its lead in the worldwide tablet market, shipping 13.3 million units in the second quarter. Following a strong first quarter, Samsung struggled to maintain its momentum and saw its market share slip to 17.2% in the second quarter. Lenovo continued to climb the rankings ladder, surpassing ASUS and moving into the third spot in the tablet market, shipping 2.4 million units and grabbing 4.9% markets share. The top 5 was rounded out by ASUS and Acer, with 4.6% and 2.0% share, respectively. Share outside the top 5 grew to an all time high as more and more vendors have made inroads in the tablet space. By now most traditional PC and phone vendors have at least one tablet model in the market, and strategies to move bundled devices and promotional offerings have slowly gained momentum.
During its earnings call earlier this week, Tim Cook addressed comments regarding weaker than usual growth of iPad sales pointing out that the company is experiencing increasing growth internationally while the US market slows. He also noted possibilities for growth in the enterprise that could come of Apple’s new partnership with IBM. “When we dig into it though our market share in the commercial sector in the US is good, it’s 76%, the penetration in business is low, it’s only 20. If you looked at the penetration of notebooks in business it would be over 60. We think there is a substantial upside in business…The market is bifurcated on iPad. In the BRIC countries, iPad did extremely well. The growth was very high. China it was in the 50’s, the middle east it was in the 60’s. In the developed countries like the US, the market is clearly weaker there…”
IDC notes that “total tablet market includes slate tablets plus 2-in-1 tablets,” but it didn’t say exactly what tablets from what companies it’s including in the others category. As always the report includes numbers for tablet shipments, while Apple’s figure of 13.3 million represents tablets sold.
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Reblogged this on Taste of Apple and commented:
Quality over quantity. Long term, iPad is here to stay. The iPad is upgraded less frequently by non-techies vs. the smart phone which typically is upgraded around every two years. If Apple continues to make great tablets, then new and returning customers will continue to choose it over competitors’ inferior experience.
You’ve got to wonder about the logic of the IDC numbers. The #4 vendor has 4.6% share, the #5 has 2.0 share and “Others” has 44.4% share. As 2-in-1 devices are included in their numbers you would expect HP to show up as they are a leading notebook maker and have significant offerings of both tablets and 2-in-1s. It would be nice to see a dedicated tablet category as the use-case for 2-in-1s is more often as a notebook rather than a tablet.
I’m reserving this reply space for Herb. He always has something useful to say when 9to5mac features an article pitting Apple against Samsung. Personally, I have the iPad 4 as well as the iPad mini, and truth be told, I only bought the mini because of its screen size being more convenient for air travel. I don’t think I would have had any reason to upgrade from the 4 to the air. That being the case, Apple is going to suffer from having already achieve deep penetration into the market with the earlier tablets. Samsung is going to have to deal with low cost leaders, and the numbers here back that up.
This goes to show that Apple need to maintain pace in the evolution of the iPad. There are a whole slew of features available on other tablets now that are leaving the iPad for dead.