Apple Losing Tablet Market Share To Samsung

A couple of years ago, Apple was the king of the tablet market, with an overwhelming proportion of the global tablet market share. Of course, this was due to the fact that the tablet was a category invented by Apple, but the tech giant has managed to stay on top for several years nonetheless.

Now, however, new figures from ABI Research are in, and it looks like Apple’s dominance in continuing to slip, with rivals Samsung now rapidly catching up when it comes to global tablet market share…

First quarter figures show a big decline in Apple’s market share year-on-year, down 10.1% to 16.4 million units. Meanwhile, Samsung seems to have gobbled that share up all by themselves, taking a 10.8% increase in tablet sales to 13 million units shipped. Including the Nexus 7, Asus came in third place; sales of 2.1 million in the first 3 months of 2014 assuring them of the place.

Unsurprisingly, Android is the leading tablet OS, taking 56.3% of the market compared to 39.6 for Apple and a slightly improved 4.1% for Windows 8.

In total, market leaders Samsung and Apple accounted for 71% of all branded slates shipped in the January-March period. There were 41.3 million tablets shipped by all manufacturers, and it looks as if - current market trends continuing - Samsung could catch up with its rivals in tablet sales at some point this year.