AppleInsider Staff
Worldwide sales of tablet computers declined by nearly 5 percent in the first quarter of 2014 — the first such fall since tracking began — but Apple's iPad maintained its dominant mobile PC position with nearly twice the market share of the closest competitor.
Tablet shipments dropped from 59 million units in the first quarter of 2013 to 56.3 million units in the first quarter of this year, according to a new report from market research firm NPD DisplaySearch. Apple accounted for some 20 percent of the market when laptops and ultrabooks are included, compared to 11 percent for Samsung, the next-largest competitor.
Apple shipped just 16.3 million iPads in the first three months of this year compared to 19.4 million one year ago. Samsung, meanwhile, is thought to have seen a modest shipment increase of around 200,000 units to 9.9 million over the same period.
Despite the downturn, tablets still represented more than half of mobile PC shipments. The iPad accounted for over 80 percent of Apple's own sales by that definition.
Apple is widely expected to bring the iPhone 5s's Touch ID system to the iPad later this year, possibly alongside a new fingerprint-authenticated mobile payments system. Both the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display are penciled in for updates this fall.
Even before then, the iPad may gain more powerful computing capabilities with the debut of Apple's next major iOS release, expected to be unveiled at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference. Specifically, iOS 8 is rumored to include support for split-screen multitasking on iPad Air, allowing users to accomplish two tasks at the same time.
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Charles Martin
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
35 Comments
My iPad 3 remains one of the most useful devices I've ever purchased from any company. Looking forward to whatever comes after the iPad Air.
I trust NPD's figures about as far as I can toss an African Bull Elephant. Their numbers aren't worth the paper their printed on, and neither is their research. Investor friends of mine have them on ignore totally now.
Again, it wouldn't hurt if these analysts specified what tablets the ones in "others" are. Or who makes them. I mean, since these clearly lead the market by far. I have never ever seen a tablet that was not made by a known manufacturer. Most of the tablets out in the real world seem to be iPads anyway.
I trust NPD's figures about as far as I can toss an African Bull Elephant. Their numbers aren't worth the paper their printed on, and neither is their research. Investor friends of mine have them on ignore totally now.
And what numbers do you trust? What numbers do you have for us to go by instead?
Do you like BareFigures' numbers better?
Again, it wouldn't hurt if these analysts specified what tablets the ones in "others" are. Or who makes them. I mean, since these clearly lead the market by far. I have never ever seen a tablet that was not made by a known manufacturer. Most of the tablets out in the real world seem to be iPads anyway.
I'd imagine that the Kindle Fire would represent a large portion of that group.
... but, yes, it just looks sloppy.