Apple’s share of the market for tablet computers fell to 50 per cent in the third quarter as the iPad faced more competition from Android devices such as Samsung’s Galaxy tablets and Google’s Nexus 7.
Apple still had a solid lead and shipped more iPads worldwide than a year earlier, according to a study published on Monday’s study by IDC. Apple had no new tablets out in the third quarter. It also might have seen sales slow amid expectations of a smaller iPad.
Apple could regain share in the holiday quarter with last Friday’s release of new iPad devices, including the iPad Mini. Apple said on Monday that it sold 3 million iPads of all kinds over the last weekend; double the 1.5 million iPads sold in the first three days after Apple launched the third-generation iPad in March and cut the price of the iPad 2.
However, the company will face competition from new devices from Amazon, Google and others over the next few weeks.
In the July-September period, Apple shipped 14 million devices, up 26 per cent from 11 million a year ago. But its market share fell from 60 per cent in the third quarter of 2011 as the overall tablet market grew by 50 per cent to nearly 28 million.
Samsung’s market share grew to 18 per cent, from about 7 per cent, as it more than quadrupled the number of tablets shipped to 5.1 million. The quarter saw the release of the Galaxy Note 10.1, a device built for use with a stylus.