In the third quarter, global tablet PC shipments surged by over 20% compared to the same period last year, nearing 40 million units. According to market research firm IDC on the 5th, global tablet shipments in the third quarter grew by 20.4% to reach 39.6 million units.
Apple maintained its top position by shipping 12.6 million units with a market share of 31.7%, although its shipments only increased by 1.4% from the third quarter of last year. As Apple’s growth lagged behind its competitors, its market share declined by 6.0 percentage points from 37.7% in the same period last year. IDC analyzed, “While the sales of the newly released iPad Air model for the new school season helped, the new iPad Pro’s price was too steep and unattractive in emerging markets, resulting in below-expectation performance.”
Samsung Electronics took second place by shipping 7.1 million units, a 18.3% increase from the third quarter of last year, with a market share of 17.9%, a slight drop of 0.3 percentage points from a year ago.
Amazon, which sells the Kindle, more than doubled its shipments with a year-on-year increase of 111.3%, jumping from 5th to 3rd place with a market share of 11.6%. Lenovo, which held the 3rd position last year with an 8.0% market share, fell to 5th with a share of 7.6%, while Huawei maintained its 4th place ranking with a shipment of 3.3 million units, marking a 44.1% increase.
IDC noted, “Although AI is increasingly being integrated into the tablet market, aside from Windows CoPilot+, most are still in the early stages,” projecting the expansion of the AI tablet market.