Research firm IDC today announced its preliminary estimates of worldwide tablet shipments for the fourth quarter of 2012, finding that Apple's share of the market slipped to 43.6% even as the iPad mini drove a nearly 50% growth in units for the company. Apple had held a 50.4% share in the previous quarter and a 51.7% share in the year-ago quarter.
"We expected a very strong fourth quarter, and the market didn't disappoint," said Tom Mainelli, research director, Tablets, at IDC. "New product launches from the category's top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season. The record-breaking quarter stands in stark contrast to the PC market, which saw shipments decline during the quarter for the first time in more than five years."
Apple's iPad once again led the market, and the firm's shipment total of 22.9 million units was exactly in line with IDC's forecast for the period. A strong iPad mini launch, plus availability of the fourth generation full-sized iPad, led to solid 48.1% shipment growth over the same quarter last year. However, strong competition in the market led to Apple's market share declining for a second quarter in a row (down to 43.6% from 46.4% last quarter).
Samsung and Asus were the biggest winners in the surging tablet market, with Samsung seeing 263% year-over-year growth to seize 15% of the market. Samsung's share was, however, down from 18.4% in the third quarter.
IDC notes that Microsoft did not qualify for the top five vendors in the fourth quarter, but the company did ship 900,000 units of its Surface tablet with Windows RT. It remains to be seen, however, whether those shipments and the upcoming Surface Pro tablet will translate into strong sales for the company.
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past.
The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2.
watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC.
It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs.
Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Wednesday April 2, 2025 10:11 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming just two days after Apple released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4.
iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.
We don't yet know what Apple is introducing in the iOS 18.5...
... the only thing in the data that we can be sure about is that sales of Apple's iPad grew 48.1% year over year -- from 15.1 million to 22.9 million. We and IDC know this because Apple (AAPL) reported those unit sales figures last week
The rest of IDC's report is almost entirely guesswork. It says that Samsung shipped 7.9 million tablets -- up 263% -- but doesn't say how it got those numbers. Certainly not from Samsung, which hasn't released unit sales figures for any of its devices in years.
IDC also says that Amazon (AMZN) shipped 6 million Kindles -- up 26.8%. This despite the fact that Amazon has never once said how many Kindles it sold, a policy that remained conspicuously in force during Tuesday's Q4 2012 earnings call.
As for the rest of IDC's findings, they just get more bizarre. The press release says Barnes & Noble (BKS) "gained traction" in the tablet market, but the spreadsheet shows Nook sales falling year over year. Even more startling, the release says Asus lost share, while the spreadsheet shows Asus' market share nearly tripling on sales that grew 402.5%.
-CNNMoney
But hey...lets continue to believe reporting that is based on guesswork.
People need to be very careful with these sorts of stats.
If I sell one unit in 2012 and four in 2013 I've had a 400% SURGE in growth! If I sell 4 million in 2012 and 6 million in 2013 I've only grown by a mere 50%.
If you look at actual increase in units shipped, Apple has grown faster than anyone else by a good deal.
The point is that the market leader will always lose market share as a market matures - this is inevitable.
These figures are completely misleading. Apple had the largest growth, shipped the most tablets, and made the most profit from it. There "percent" slipped because the market is diluted, and the percentage growth means nothing, because they shipped 7.4 mil more tablets this year (48% growth) and Samsung only shipped 5.7 mil more tablets this year (263% growth), but Apple had more growth than Samsung in real numbers.
In with "Who cares about Marketshare - Apple makes the most profits" comment
You forgot "but only Apple reports sales to end users. Shipments are stuck in the retail channel."
Seriously though, if the point of the study is to show Apple is becoming less of a dominant player, both of those comments are legitimate criticisms. Time for the other companies to grow up and stop deceiving us with BS "shipment" numbers.