Apple continues to hold a dominant position in the tablet market thanks to continued iPad sales growth throughout 2020, according to new data shared today by Canalys.
Apple shipped an estimated 19.2 million iPads during the fourth quarter of 2020 (which corresponds to Apple's first fiscal quarter of 2021), marking a 40 percent increase over the estimated 13.7 million tablets that it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2019.
When it comes to market share, Apple comes in at 36 percent, close to double the market share of its next closest competitor, Samsung. Samsung has a 19 percent market share and shipped an estimated 9.9 million tablets during the holiday quarter.
Amazon shipped an estimated 6.5 million tablets for 12 percent market share, while Lenovo shipped 5.6 million and Huawei shipped 3.5 million.
Apple furthered its dominance in the tablet market, with Q4 shipments growing 40% to 19.2 million, its best iPad performance since Q4 2014. Samsung maintained second place in the market with 9.9 million tablets shipped, up 41% from Q4 2019. Amazon climbed to third place on the back of strong holiday season demand, shipping 6.5 million tablets. Lenovo was the fastest growing vendor in Q4, increasing sell-in volume by 125% to reach 5.6 million units. Huawei was the only vendor in the top 5 to see shipments decline year-on-year.
For all of 2020, Apple shipped an estimated 58.8 million tablets, 24 percent more than it shipped across 2019. Samsung shipped an estimated 31 million, followed by Huawei at 16.3 million and Amazon at 15.9 million.
Canalys also shared estimates for combined PC, tablet, and Chromebooks in the fourth quarter of 2020, and using this metric, Apple was the number two worldwide vendor with 26.4 million device shipments, up 42 percent from combined Mac and iPad shipments in 2019.
When factoring in tablets and PCs, Lenovo was the number one worldwide vendor with 28.8 million units shipped. HP came in third with 19.3 million, Dell was fourth with 15.9 million, and Samsung came in fifth with 11.5 million units shipped.
Across all of 2020, Apple shipped an estimated 81.4 million iPads and Macs, coming in second to Lenovo with 87 million units shipped.
Apple yesterday shared its earnings results for the holiday quarter, confirming continued strong Mac and iPad sales. Apple does not break down unit sales for its devices anymore, but Apple set a new all-time holiday quarter revenue record for the Mac category with revenue hitting $8.7 billion, up from $7.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Apple's iPad category earned $8.4 billion, up from $6 billion in the year-ago quarter, which marks growth of 41 percent year over year.
Going forward, Mac and iPad sales are likely to remain strong as people continue to work and learn from home. Apple has multiple Mac refreshes in the works, and this year, we're expecting to see overhauled iMacs and MacBook Pro models with Apple silicon chips.
There are also new iPad Pro, iPad mini, and iPad refreshes in the works that could further drive sales.
