Samsung’s tablet market share rises while Apple’s falls

Samsung grabbed tablet market share from Apple during the first quarter of this year, but the iPad maker retained the top spot in an otherwise slowing tablet market. Worldwide tablet shipments totaled 50.4 million units during the quarter, increasing by just 3.9 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, according to an IDC study released Thursday. The shipments rose at a slower rate than expected by IDC, which said the tablet category could struggle this year.

The tablet market is still growing, but at a much slower rate. Q1 2014 saw 50.4 million units ship worldwide, up from 48.6 million the same quarter last year. Apple’s iPad once again took first place, although it dropped to 32.5 percent market share, while Samsung maintained second place by growing its share to 22.3 percent. Asus held steady in third place at 5 percent share, followed by Lenovo seeing big gains to 4.1 percent and Amazon falling to 1.9 percent. The latest estimates come from IDC, which says the tablet market grew just 3.9 percent year-over-year. In short, the iPad’s loss was more or less equivalent to the gain for Android tablets (IDC briefly mentioned Windows tablets to say their share remains small but they are gaining traction).