Tablet wars: Samsung and Lenovo keep growing as Apple stagnates

IDC’s latest Q4 2013 report of global tablet shipments showed only Lenovo and Samsung increased their market share among the top five brands.

Apple still holds a firm position at the top with 33.8% of the market, but that figure fell 4.4% year-on-year. While the quarter was the iPad-maker’s most successful on record, its year-over-year growth was well below the industry average. South Korea’s Samsung, in second place, gained a hefty 5.8% of the market and shipments grew 85.9% year-on-year. China’s Lenovo rounded out the top five growing from 1.3 to 4.4% market share. That might not seem like much, but Lenovo’s shipments more than tripled in the past year.

“Lenovo’s access to the Chinese whitebox manufacturing infrastructure has helped it drive more low-priced tablet products into the market,” says IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani. “The company’s strength in emerging markets, and its increased market share in adjoining markets such as PCs and smartphones, makes it well positioned to see additional tablet gains in 2014.”

Amazon and Asus make up the remaining spots in the top five. Amazon’s market share dipped from 9.9 to 7.6%, while Asus held a steady 5.1%.

Worldwide, IDC estimates 76.9-million tablets were shipped in Q4 2013, which comes out to 62.4% growth over Q3 2013 and 28.2% on Q4 2012. In all of 2013, 217.1-million units were shipped, up from 144.2-million in 2012. But the researchers expect tablets to have a difficult 2014 — and with many of the more mature markets reaching saturation, emerging markets may be the new focus for these manufacturers if they hope to keep shipping large volumes of their slates.

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This article by Paul Bischoff originally appeared on Tech in Asia, a Burn Media publishing partner.