Apple led the tablet market in the second quarter, even as its market share plummeted as customers held off buying to see what the company comes up with when it starts releasing new products this fall.
Apple shipped 14.6 million iPads last quarter, a 14.1 percent decline from a year earlier, market research firm IDC said today. That left Apple with a 32.4 percent share of the market, down from 60.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012.
No. 2 ranked Samsung was the biggest winner, with shipments nearly quadrupling to 8.1 million units. Even so, the South Korean electronics manufacturer only captured an 8.1 percent share of the market. Asus and Lenovo also posted year-over-year shipment growth, but they’re share of the market remains miniscule – at 2 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
"A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors," Tom Mainelli, research director for tablets at IDC said in a statement. "With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that's likely to continue into the third quarter. However, by the fourth quarter we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market."
Overall, tablet shipments worldwide totaled 45.1 million units in the second quarter, up from 28.3 million shipments a year ago.
While Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating system continued to dominate, IDC said that “Microsoft-fueled products are starting to make notable progress into the market." Of those 45.1 million tablets shipped in the second quarter, 1.8 million were powered by Windows, making Microsoft’s OS the biggest gainer as measured in year-over-year OS growth.
