Apple's Tablet Market Share Decreases During Q3

By Zak Islam
published

Samsung sells 5.1 million tablets during third quarter of 2012.

During the third quarter of 2012, Apple's tablet market share decreased as consumers "sat out" in anticipation of the iPad Mini, with Android tablets benefiting as a result.

Analyst firm IDC said after a strong second quarter, Apple's shipment growth for iPad units showed signs of decrease in both consumer and commercial markets.

"We believe a sizeable percentage of consumers interested in buying an Apple tablet sat out the third quarter in anticipation of an announcement about the new iPad Mini," said IDC analyst Tom Mainelli.

During the second quarter, Apple's share slipped from 65.5 percent to 50.4 percent in the third quarter. In the same period in 2011, Apple's market share stood at 59.7 percent.

The other four firms ranked in the top five market leaders all gained share during the third quarter. Samsung shipped 5.1 million Android-powered tablets worldwide, representing an increase of 115 percent from the second quarter of 2012. When compared to the same period last year, that's an increase of 325 percent when the South Korean conglomerate shipped 1.2 million tablets.

Amazon, meanwhile, had its worldwide market share increase from 8 percent in the second quarter to 9.0 percent during the third quarter due to their Kindle Fire lineup.

As for Windows 8 and RT tablets, IDC stated: "Price points are critical in tablets, and Microsoft and its partners will have a tough time winning a share of consumer wallet with price points starting at $500".

Despite the strong performance showcased by Apple's tablet competitors, IDC expects the firm to deliver solid results during the fourth quarter. "Now that the new Mini and a fourth-generation full-sized iPad are both shipping we expect Apple to have a very good quarter."

When it announced the iPad Mini and iPad 4, both of which have together sold three million units in three days, Apple confirmed that iPad shipments has exceeded 100 million since it came into fruition back in 2010. Analysts expect the device to sell over 100 million units next year alone.

The worldwide tablet market grew by 49.5 percent year over year during the third quarter and 6.7 percent during the second quarter of 2012.

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Zak Islam
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • freggo
    A repeat of the 1980 in the making.
    Apple missed the boat when the world switched from the C-64 and Atari home computers to PCs while Apple went from the 2c to the Lisa and Mac. Their closed up and locked down Hardware/Software approach has resulted in them being a non-player in the PC world with a laughable market share and no substantial profits.
    Now the same is likely to happen again. Apple is currently still riding high on a cash cushion from past profits but watch it erode as their iPhone/iPad market shares continue to fall; and the stock value will follow soon.

    Before you know it they will again be in need of someone like Steve Jobs to rescue them.

    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    At some point fashions will change and the current crop of Apple styled products will no longer be vogue. How many companies will be so kind as to showcase their innovative new features to a company that behaves as Apple has? They can no longer claim innocence or the underdog, and have shown what they do with power.
    Reply
  • madjimms
    I'm going to make a company called Guava & see if people will buy my overly priced GuaPhone
    Reply
  • captainblacko
    apple haven't done to bad for themselves since the 1980's......

    yes they've had their up's and downs but look what happened to Atari and commodore.
    Reply
  • house70
    With the gigantic middle finger shown to iPad3 buyers by releasing the 4th one a few months later and the lackluster screen on the Mini this is no surprise. Thank god for the brainwashed followers, otherwise Apple would be in deep trouble.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    house70With the gigantic middle finger shown to iPad3 buyers by releasing the 4th one a few months later and the lackluster screen on the Mini this is no surprise. Thank god for the brainwashed followers, otherwise Apple would be in deep trouble.House come on, the 4th gen iPad is simply nice. I should know, I just got one. Brainwashed? No? Ignorant? No. I spent $750 on what was supposed to be one of the hottest Android tablet offerings, the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity & dock only to be greated by a dead pixel out of the box and laggy performance, even with JellyBean. Its 2012, we should be past dead pixels completely now. If Apple can do it Asus should be able to as well. How many cores does it take not to have laggy performance on an Android tablet? I thought 4 cores would be enough, apparently its not (even in "Performance Mode"). Shortage of RAM? Maybe, but why, RAM is cheap...and the tablet did cost $600 so that's inexcusable. I tried to ignore these shortcomings but why should I live with that? On the other hand the 4th gen iPad I replaced the Infinity with has no dead pixels and is just plain nasty fast and liquidy-smooth, as expected for the price. To be completely fair, the apps on the Apple App Store are more plentiful and generally of higher quality than the Android tablet counterparts. ...sheesh, you can't even get a classic game like Monopoly for an Android tablet, even the pinball offerings don't compare favorably to their Apple App Store counterparts. I don't always want to first-person-shoot rag-heads or hunt for IEDs.

    I know its unpopular here to say anything about Apple that is not negative but I've done my research and actually spent my money comparing products (unlike many of the haters here). The 4th gen iPad is a nice product. So I happily gave up the ability to arrange my icons in a pentagon and install weather widgets for the serious performance and quality of the iPad. Oh, let's discuss the browsing experience. Who do you know that wants to load the mobile edition of a website on a 10" screen? Why would anyone, anywhere, at anytime want to do that? You'd think the Android developers would ask that question too. But no, despite ad-ons and default settings to the contrary half-to-3/4 of the time I had to manually load the desktop editions of websites every time I browse the web or come here to THG. ...got very old very fast. ...no, it didn't matter if it was the native browser, Chrome, or Firefox...same issues. In fact, you can barely log in to THG forums for the cursor not wanting to allow you to input your password. I have no such issues with the 4th gen iPad. Looks like Apple's engineers were able to figure that out. All Android devices aren't as refined as the SGS3, which I learned the hard way. I accept that my experiences hopefully are not the norm and I'm no Apple fan-person, but like I said, I've spent my money and time using the competition. For me, the iPad wins.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    halcyonHouse come on, the 4th gen iPad is simply nice. I should know, I just got one. Brainwashed? No? Ignorant? No. I spent $750 on what was supposed to be one of the hottest Android tablet offerings, the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity & dock only to be greated by a dead pixel out of the box and laggy performance, even with JellyBean. Its 2012, we should be past dead pixels completely now. If Apple can do it Asus should be able to as well. How many cores does it take not to have laggy performance on an Android tablet? I thought 4 cores would be enough, apparently its not (even in "Performance Mode"). Shortage of RAM? Maybe, but why, RAM is cheap...and the tablet did cost $600 so that's inexcusable. I tried to ignore these shortcomings but why should I live with that? On the other hand the 4th gen iPad I replaced the Infinity with has no dead pixels and is just plain nasty fast and liquidy-smooth, as expected for the price....snip...It's interesting--I'm an android user almost universally (phone and tablet are android, but I also use an ipod touch for casual netflix/youtube watching at home). I couldn't imagine being locked down by iOS for my daily usage (phone/tablet), but I also hate hate hate the inherent issues that manifest in android because of the thing it's touted for: hardware platform freedom. For now I tolerate the vast discrepancies in user experience across android only because it gives me a bit more freedom to do what I want to do in an easier way than iOS could (I know it's beating a dead horse, but live widgets are a huge time-saver/multi-tasker for me). That alone makes it worth it.

    That being said, I got an ASUS TF101--I've never been happy with it. I got luckier than you hardware-wise, but man, ASUS' team has continually screwed the pooch with firmware updates. I think 4 sequential ICS "updates" broke my tablet in one fashion or another, in a way that pretty much made it useless. That was a headache. Finally they got it right.

    The sad thing is, I've found that despite getting the dock for my TF as well, I hardly use it for anything "productivity" related. I generally end up browsing the web, watching my own videos, or watching Netflix or amazon prime videos. As such, I decided that my next tablet device is going to be the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 w/4G. I hated the original Fire for its locked down OS, but then I noticed that for anything I wanted to do, it did it and did it in a much more stable fashion than a "full" android tablet. And I imagine my feelings are much in the same vane as how some people favor ipads over android tablets. It's a sad commentary on the android ecosystem as a whole, and I suspect one reason why google is finally making "their own" android tablets.

    So while I still could never rely on iOS for my mobile devices, I absolutely understand and agree with your perspective.
    Reply
  • belardo
    freggoA repeat of the 1980 in the making.Apple missed the boat when the world switched from the C-64 and Atari home computers to PCs while Apple went from the 2c to the Lisa and Mac. Their closed up and locked down Hardware/Software approach has resulted in them being a non-player in the PC world~~ You don't know what you're talking about. The IBM PC was planned on being an open system. MS caused that because they out-smarted IBM. The fact you said "Lisa" as if it was an important computer shows that. The C64 came out After the Atari 8bits. Amiga always did better than Atari ST.

    Reply
  • Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer
    halcyonOh, let's discuss the browsing experience. Who do you know that wants to load the mobile edition of a website on a 10" screen? Why would anyone, anywhere, at anytime want to do that? You'd think the Android developers would ask that question too. But no, despite ad-ons and default settings to the contrary half-to-3/4 of the time I had to manually load the desktop editions of websites every time I browse the web or come here to THG. ...got very old very fast. ...no, it didn't matter if it was the native browser, Chrome, or Firefox...same issues. In fact, you can barely log in to THG forums for the cursor not wanting to allow you to input your password. I have no such issues with the 4th gen iPad.I use Dolphin on my phone and have absolutely no trouble getting full sites to load (yes, I prefer them even on a 4.3" screen). I will agree that it is nigh-impossible to log into tomshardware.com, but since that is the only site that I have problems with, I'm more than happy to blame them.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    The iPad is certainly not perfect but I'm happy with it.
    Reply