While the general impression is that the iPad dominates the tablet market share, it’s not exactly so. Apple lost a big chunk of market share to the likes of the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD, Nexus 10 and other Android models. Recent IDC released numbers for Q4 2012 attest to that lost domination and in spite of the supposedly revolutionary iPad Mini format, Apple is bleeding market share.
IDC is saying that the overall tablet market registered significant growth for the holiday quarter, up 75.3% compared to the year before and 74.3% from Q3. Year on year the growth was the biggest for Android tablets, as Samsung had its year on year shipment increased by 263% and ASUS grew an amazing 402.5% year on year. ASUS also registered a decline in share from Q3 to Q4, dropping from 7.8% to 5.8%. Amazon also bumped up its share to 11.5%, up from 8.3% in Q3, all thanks to the holidays.
The company lead by Jeff Bezos sold 6+ million tablets in the last quarter of 2012, while Barnes & Noble also had a good quarter, shipping around 1 million units and increasing its share from 0.7% to 1.9%. Apple may still be on the top spot, with 22.9 million units, meaning a 48% year on year growth, but their share dropped to 43.6% down from 46.4% in Q3 2012, which is strange considering Xmas is the time to grow, not decrease…
