According to the latest data from IDC, Apple’s iPad continues to hold the crown in the new and quickly-expanding tablet market. This comes as no surprise considering the quickness at which the new iPad has sold since it launched earlier this year and considering that tablet sales were expected to at least double this year.
In Q2, the market as a whole grew 66 percent year-over-year to reach nearly 25 million tablets sold — and the iPad has a whopping 68 percent of that market share. Apple’s tablet shipments grew 84 percent since last year, shipping 17 million iPads in Q2 of this year compared to 9.2 million a year ago.
Amazon, Asus, and Samsung didn’t ship nearly as many units as Apple did, but saw their respective pieces of the market continue to grow as well. Samsung more than doubled its shipments compared to last year, hitting 2.4 million, giving Samsung almost 10 percent of the market. As for Amazon, it shipped 1.2 million Kindle Fire devices and currently holds the bronze metal with five percent of the market. Asus shipped only 855,000 tablets in Q2, up 115 percent year-over-year.
Still, with the Nexus 7 launch and upcoming Windows 8 tablets (such as the Microsoft Surface shown above) coming to market, Apple may yet have its work cut out in maintaining its dominance. It will be an interesting next few quarters for sure.