Data & Research

Apple grabs 90% of tablet market share in 3Q10

Projects 17 million tablet shipments in year

Apple grabs 90% of tablet market share in 3Q10
As further indication of the rise in importance and profile of the tablet segment in consumer electronics, research firm IDC has debuted its bespoke shipment tracker for this burgeoning form factor.

According to the analyst’s figures, the worldwide media tablet market grew 45.1 percent in 3Q10, with 4.8 million units shifted globally compared to 3.3 million in the previous quarter.

Not unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPad grabbed the lion’s share of the tablet sales, as IDC estimates that the Mac maker’s touchscreen line accounted for 90 percent of the shipments.

Defining words

The research house defines media tablets as devices with colour displays between five and 14 inches, running lightweight operating systems - such as iOS and Android – and based on either x86 or ARM processors.

Samsung’s 1 million-selling Galaxy Tab is noticeably absent from IDC’s statistics, its introduction coming too late for inclusion in the third quarter analysis.

With the Korean manufacturer potentially priming an update to its well received 7-inch product at Mobile World Congress, plus RIM’s PlayBook and Motorola’s Xoom in the pipeline, the race for tablet supremacy is only just beginning.

Accelerated growth

"The media tablet market's rapid evolution will continue to accelerate in 4Q10 and beyond with new product and service introductions, channel expansion, price competition, and experimentation with new use cases among consumers and enterprises," said Susan Kevorkian, IDC’s research director, Mobile Connected Devices.

Going forward, the analyst firm expects 17 million tablets (including Apple’s own reported 14.8 million iPads) to be shipped in the whole of 2010, and forecasts sales of 44.6 million and 70.8 million in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

[source: IDC]

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