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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Research firm IDC today published its tablet shipments estimates for the first calendar quarter of 2014, with Apple holding onto its lead in tablet market share. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, the iPad accounts for approximately one third of all global tablets shipped in the first three months of 2014.

idc_1Q14_tablets.jpg
Worldwide tablet shipments in 1Q14 in millions of units (Source: IDC)
On a vendor basis, Apple remains the number one manufacturer, but its dominance is starting to slip. iPad shipments declined both quarterly and yearly, causing Apple to lose some ground to rival Samsung, which saw increases in both units shipped and market share.
Apple maintained its lead in the worldwide tablet plus 2-in-1 market, shipping 16.4 million units. That's down from 26.0 million units in the previous quarter and well below its total of 19.5 million units in the first quarter of 2013. Despite the contraction, the company saw its share of the market slip only modestly to 32.5%, down from the previous quarter's share of 33.2%. Samsung once again grew its worldwide share, increasing from 17.2% last quarter to 22.3% this quarter. Samsung continues to work aggressively with carriers to drive tablet shipments through attractively priced smartphone bundles. Rounding out the top five were ASUS (5%), Lenovo (4.1%), and Amazon (1.9%).
idc_1Q14_tablets_trend.jpg
Apple's iPad shipments (red) and share of worldwide tablet shipments (blue) for 2Q11-1Q14 (Source: IDC)
On a platform basis, Android is the leader with a two-thirds share of the market, followed by iOS. Windows market share remains small, but is growing due to popularity of inexpensive, hybrid notebook tablets like the ASUS Transformer T100.

When analyzing these numbers, it is important to note that IDC tracks shipments instead of sales, making it impossible to know how many shipped devices were actually purchased by consumers and how many remain on retail shelves. IDC's figures also are estimates, as most companies do not release their exact tablet shipment data. Research firms like IDC must rely on supply chain data and calculations from information that is made public by manufacturers to build their estimates.

Article Link: Apple Maintains Narrowing Lead in Tablet Market Share
 

Tankmaze

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2012
1,707
351
Like Tim Cook said, its about usage not market share.
But this data still impressive for Apple to be number one knowing lots of competition in the tablet market.
 

Born Again

macrumors 68040
May 12, 2011
3,996
5,165
Norcal
Apple had almost 70% of the tablet marketshare yet this news story likes to paint a different picture. Apple iPad is in major decline!!!!!

What a joke macrumours and I'm not laughing.

:apple:
 

solarguy17

macrumors 6502a
Sep 10, 2007
738
183
Like Tim Cook said, its about usage not market share.
But this data still impressive for Apple to be number one knowing lots of competition in the tablet market.


Maybe but market share drives investors and shareholders.
But what this is a sign of is the fact that 2-3 years ago the ONLY table was the iPad. So tons of people bought them, including Android and MS users. With the recent (<1yr) release is new Galaxy, Surface, ect those users have actual options within the ecosystem they prefer. So naturally when it comes time to upgrade they are going to go with that OS tablet style.
This makes sense and hopefully Apple doesn't get to concerned becuase it's natural.
Same thing happened with the iPhone.
 

genovelle

macrumors 68020
May 8, 2008
2,098
2,672
Like Tim Cook said, its about usage not market share.
But this data still impressive for Apple to be number one knowing lots of competition in the tablet market.

I also find it suspect that no one else reports any sales or shipments. They just throw out hints. Samsung actually did until just two years back. Then they started hinting at what they shipped on initial releases and somehow this sets the guessing in motion. I wonder if the media would allow Apple to suddenly stop reporting sales? It would be one less metric they have to beat Wall Street's made up numbers.
 

numlock

macrumors 68000
Mar 13, 2006
1,590
88
Like Tim Cook said, its about usage not market share.
But this data still impressive for Apple to be number one knowing lots of competition in the tablet market.

thats strange because in 2012 he had two slides to highlight that the ipad had almost 70% of the marketshare. now that its down its not an important metric?
 

lincolntran

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2010
843
471
iPad is in major lead, not narrow lead.

MacRumors is trying to paint a different picture to stir up more discussion. :apple:
 

RedOrchestra

Suspended
Aug 13, 2012
2,623
3,237
So the same Apple fanz cheering this metric, pooh-poohed the smartphone metrics, yesterday - figures.
 

Tankmaze

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2012
1,707
351
thats strange because in 2012 he had two slides to highlight that the ipad had almost 70% of the marketshare. now that its down its not an important metric?

I remember back in wwdc or when apple announce the new ipad (I forgot which) that the ipad marketshare was 40-50% but the usage for ipad was around 70-80% and Tim questioned where are the other tablet that people had purchase.

I wouldn't say not an important metric but Apple always been highlighting the usage of their device, or how many song or apps downloaded etc.
Marketshare seems like secondary objective for them.
 

Karma*Police

Suspended
Jul 15, 2012
2,503
2,829
If the court room drama between Apple and Samsung taught us anything, it's that these IDC numbers are a joke.
 

Dirtfarmer

macrumors regular
Jan 18, 2012
210
274
so misleading

So misleading.

The headline is only accurate if software doesn't matter.

But of course software matters.

If you quantify by software, rather than by vendor, Apple's tablets have gone from industry leaders to also-rans. That's what the headline should say.

Macrumors is the world's greatest pump-and-dump site.
 

cdmoore74

macrumors 68020
Jun 24, 2010
2,413
711
"but its dominance is starting to slip"

My understanding of dominance must be different because back when Apple had over 90% of the tablet market that was considered dominant. This here is nothing but a small lead that will soon evaporate.
The phone and tablet market will dry up for Apple because cheaper product will do the same if not better than Apple's offerings. Need to either bring Steve Jobs from the dead (maybe another Jobs article will do the trick) or replace Tim Cook with someone else.
 

lincolntran

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2010
843
471
R u kidding? Look at the graph

Apple is dwindling

That graph is far different from reality.

When I go out, I see iPad (in people hands, actually being used) everywhere. I rarely see othe tablet at all. The only place I see so many other tablets are on shelves and demo units but that's about it.
 

mk_in_mke

macrumors regular
Jan 2, 2003
198
21
Milwaukee, WI
The interpretation is a joke...

The % share is calculated from the tablet ACTIVE BASE. What I mean is means is "out of 100 active / in use tablets, how many are Samsung or Apple or whatever...?" That's the market share...

The numbers in the table today are just number of units sold or shipped... And definitely not the representation of each player's respective market share. So who cares?

Now, that Apple sells less in numbers? You have to be a serious idiot not to think that because of the numbers of players in the tablet arena in 2014, Apple is still going to have the largest numbers and the same market share when there was a handful of players in 2010 or even 2011. Kindle, Samsung, Sony, Amazon, Barnes Noble,... are all players who contributed to the erosion of Apple market share and this is and this was expected. No surprise here...

The only surprise? Some posters' ongoing lack of rational thinking and what the numbers really mean because no one has a clear picture.
 

JoEw

macrumors 68000
Nov 29, 2009
1,583
1,291
Haha apple is one company, and look how much tablet share they hold for 1 company.
The next closest is the giant mix of "other" category.

I think apple is doing fine guys, though yes the market has saturated and like every other market this always happens.

Apple does not compete at the low end, you can get android tablets for 40 bucks on amazon...

If every tablet were priced equally we would see the ipad has the dominate marketshare close to 80%-90%.

price points divide markets, grouping 40 dollar android tablets with 300-800 dollar ipads is a bit silly.

And i will save the silly car analogies for someone else ;)
 

kagharaht

macrumors 65816
Oct 7, 2007
1,398
949
Haha apple is one company, and look how much tablet share they hold for 1 company.
The next closest is the giant mix of "other" category.

I think apple is doing fine guys, though yes the market has saturated and like every other market this always happens.

Apple does not compete at the low end, you can get android tablets for 40 bucks on amazon...

If every tablet were priced equally we would see the ipad has the dominate marketshare close to 80%-90%.

price points divide markets, grouping 40 dollar android tablets with 300-800 dollar ipads is a bit silly.

And i will save the silly car analogies for someone else ;)

Yes plenty of Android Tablets for $40 dollars. Outside the US, Asian markets, even less than $40 bucks. Of course Android will dominate Marketshare. It won't hurt Apple in sales and usage dominance. All this does is provide bragging rights to Google and Android fans as having more physical units out there that people will use for basic stuff and freebies to play with. Google is the real winner in the Android Marketshare dominance since they now have a huge supply of users to data mine and sell off to advertisers.
 

69Mustang

macrumors 604
Jan 7, 2014
7,895
15,043
In between a rock and a hard place
Haha apple is one company, and look how much tablet share they hold for 1 company.
The next closest is the giant mix of "other" category.

I think apple is doing fine guys, though yes the market has saturated and like every other market this always happens.

Apple does not compete at the low end, you can get android tablets for 40 bucks on amazon...

If every tablet were priced equally we would see the ipad has the dominate marketshare close to 80%-90%.

price points divide markets, grouping 40 dollar android tablets with 300-800 dollar ipads is a bit silly.

And i will save the silly car analogies for someone else ;)

Yes plenty of Android Tablets for $40 dollars. Outside the US, Asian markets, even less than $40 bucks. Of course Android will dominate Marketshare. It won't hurt Apple in sales and usage dominance. All this does is provide bragging rights to Google and Android fans as having more physical units out there that people will use for basic stuff and freebies to play with. Google is the real winner in the Android Marketshare dominance since they now have a huge supply of users to data mine and sell off to advertisers.

Which report did you two read about Android marketshare? I didn't see anything about Android in the OP.:confused:
 

snprintf

macrumors member
Apr 20, 2014
69
0
So the same Apple fanz cheering this metric, pooh-poohed the smartphone metrics, yesterday - figures.

I'm pretty sure that they say that market share alone is not important, but market share combined with something else (like usage per device) is.

It's like company value vs stock price. Stock price alone means nothing, but if the price per share of a company increases, the company's value increases (ignoring splits and concats).

----------

That's good to hear for three reasons. One, it's good to be in the bigger ecosystem. Two, I'm glad people can at least realize how horrible the other tablets are, where the difference is much more apparent than with phones. Three, I'm sure some part of my S&P500 ETF is AAPL.

Now, if we can just see all the tablet sales shoot down to 0 and Mac sales quadruple as people stop buying these dumb wannabe laptops...

----------

Which report did you two read about Android marketshare? I didn't see anything about Android in the OP.:confused:

Samsung. Their OS is a variant of Android.
 

ICEMAN-sven

macrumors newbie
May 25, 2012
27
2
Expected

Something I expected. The last 2 iPad's had only minor improvements. Nothing to blow your mind. Little faster and lighter. Without the mini, Apple share would be much lower.

The last big innovation was Retina with the iPad 3. Since then, more or less nothing from Apple. As a owner, there is not one good reason for a upgrade.
 

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
Maybe but market share drives investors and shareholders.

Savvy investors don't care about marketshare as much as revenue, profit, and sales growth. It's all about "show me the money". Of course there are a lot of retail emotional investors out there that probably do care more about who sells more because they don't understand the difference between revenue, profit, marketshare, EBITA, etc. They "invest" in headlines, not bottom-lines.

Marketshare in a vacuum a meaningless number. To oversimplify, if a company achieves 60% marketshare by selling its widget at a razor thin 5% margin resulting in revenue of $10,000 then it's not as good an investment as a company that has 40% marketshare but can achieve 45% margin on $5,000 revenue.

That is a key reason why investors, who are always looking at the downside, didn't care last month when Apple announced iPad sales slipped. Apple is maintaining its crazy high margins, profits for the quarter are at a record, and it raised its dividend. THAT is what investors want to see.

Also, investors look to the quality of the customer, i.e., will the customer more likely than not lead to additional revenue. Survey after survey have shown iOS users have a significantly greater tendency to purchase apps and media than Android users. 30% of that revenue goes direct to Apple. That's not the story with Android and it's h/w makers. They don't get the benefit of after-sales s/w revenue.
 

blackcrayon

macrumors 68020
Mar 10, 2003
2,252
1,823
The % share is calculated from the tablet ACTIVE BASE. What I mean is means is "out of 100 active / in use tablets, how many are Samsung or Apple or whatever...?" That's the market share...

Eh?

Market share has nothing to do with active base. It's sales over a given time period (further obscured in this case because sales to consumers isn't known for most vendors).

It's not really a shock that hoards of cheaper tablets will start to catch up to sales of "premium-only" vendors like Apple in terms of pure units shipped.
 
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