Apple's iPad dominated tablet sales revenue across all of 2019

Apple's share of the global tablet market increased in 2019, according to Strategy Analytics, with the iPad securing 44% of sales revenue for across the entire year based on the sales of application processors alone.

The iPad and iPad Pro have been extremely popular tablets for quite some time, with Apple's tablets repeatedly being touted as the most popular by a number of research firms and analysts. In the latest report discussing the global tablet market, Apple's products are said to have increased market share in a slowly growing global market.

In Strategy Analytics' report into the application processor market for tablets, the firm refers to the system-on-chip or processor vendor, rather than the final tablet producer. In effect, the comparison is pitting Apple's A-series chips against those produced by Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Samsung.

While the chips produced by rivals are typically either sold to a variety of different tablet vendors, or in the case of Samsung, used in its own products as well as by others, Apple does not offer its A-series chips for use by other manufacturers. In effect, the results can potentially skew in favor of Apple's opponents, as a Qualcomm chip may be used by multiple vendors instead of just one, as is the case for Apple.

Strategy Analytics claims the Applications Processor market as a whole grew 2% year-on-year in 2019, hitting a total value of $1.9 billion for the period. Of that total, Apple accounts for 44% across all of 2019, an increase from the previous year, though in the fourth quarter of 2019, Apple's revenue share was even higher at 47%.

By comparison, Qualcomm and Intel each secured 16% of the annual market share. MediaTek and Samsung make up the rest of the top five chip vendors on the list.

While this approach focuses on the value of chips being produced and used in devices, it does not take into account the quantity of chips produced.

"The tablet shipment decline trend continues to be a challenge to tablet AP vendors, even as average selling prices show strength," commented Strategy Analytics associate director Sravan Kundojjala.

Latest Exclusives

Latest comparisons

13 Comments

Beats 3073 comments · 4 Years

About 4 years ago

Not bad considering the knockoffs sell for a 100 bucks and a lot of them are throwaway gifts from carriers. A lot of people I know were given crappy ones from Samsung that were either went straight to the drawer or were passed on to kids etc.

44% revenue is not bad but I wonder what that translates to in profit? I'm betting about 90%. Makes me wonder why anyone is still manufacturing knockoffs. Could be to spy on families or push agendas like Amazon shopping. :#

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

There’s not a single doubt left, the iPad owns the tablet market. Everything else are also-rans. Android have never come close to optimizing code for tablets and their apps all look like phone apps running on a larger screen. Developers know it too, painfully.

gentooguy 23 comments · 4 Years

SIgh. Apple had 35% market share in tablets. Samsung generally has 10%-15% share. Samsung's cheapest tablet is $150 and their most expensive is $750. For the record, Amazon consistently has a much lower market share than Samsung - as low as 3% - with the exception being their Black Friday and Prime Day promotions where they practically give them away. "Makes me wonder why anyone is still manufacturing knockoffs." For the same reason that Apple sold Macs in the 90s and 00s ... and why they sell Apple TVs and HomePods. Even though Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo, Acer and Asus don't make anywhere near as much profit as Apple does with tablets they still make profit. Samsung sold 22 million tablets last year. The Nintendo Switch? 18 million. And FAR more Nintendo Switches sold last year than XBox Ones and PlayStation 4s combined. "A lot of people I know ..." Yes, everyone "you know" has terrible Android, ChromeOS and Windows devices because as far as "you know" Apple is the only company capable of making good tech products, so everyone else - the 75% of people globally who do not buy Macs, iPads or iPhones - are some combination of cheapskates and fools. Right? For the record, iOS/iPadOS only dominates America. In Asia and especially Europe, plenty of people use Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Acer and Asus tablets. Want some context? Compare the sales of any top 10 Android tablet maker last year to HomePod sales. As HomePod is obviously a knockoff of Alexa AND Google Home AND Samsung's Bixby powered speakers, makes me wonder why anyone is still manufacturing them.

seanismorris 1624 comments · 8 Years

I wonder if iPadOS is ever going to get the ability to have multiple profiles.

lkrupp said:

There’s not a single doubt left, the iPad owns the tablet market. Everything else are also-rans. Android have never come close to optimizing code for tablets and their apps all look like phone apps running on a larger screen. Developers know it too, painfully.

So ... with 35% market share the iPad "owns" the tablet market? Why don't you apply that same logic to phones? Or computers, where Chromebooks outsell MacBooks at times? The iPad only owns the tablet market in America and naturally the American press which has a strong Apple bias because iPhones, Macs and iPads are all they use and you can tell in their "reviews". In Europe and especially Asia, lots of there is a lot more parity between Android and iPadOS in terms of market share. "Android have never come close to optimizing code for tablets and their apps all look like phone apps running on a larger screen." You are only half right. Google released Honeycomb, which was excellent for tablets, in 2011. Even though Google advised Android OEMs to continue to use Gingerbread for phones, Samsung used Honeycomb for the Galaxy Note ... the industry game changing success which which every iPhone since late 2014 is now based on, even down to the AMOLED curved screens. So what happened? ChromeOS. Google decided that if they continued to make Android for large form factors, ChromeOS would never have a chance. So internally they took the position that Android would only be for devices that were 7' and smaller with ChromeOS being made for bigger devices. Samsung and the rest were free to make and market Android tablets but without any OS or app support from Google ... they'd have to supply their own. Samsung did great stuff on their own with the UI, including split screen mode and other stuff for multi-tasking and stylus/trackpad support - again which Apple found useful for the iPad - but no apps really except Samsung's own, most of which were for the S-Pen. LG, Lenovo - who to their credit really tried - and the rest either had terrible tablet software or didn't even try. So Google severely harmed Android tablets ... in return for 6% market share in PCs (half that of macOS) that ChromeOS gives them, with most of that being very cheap devices in public schools. Great plan Google.