Apple, Samsung now have almost 60% global tablet market share: Report

Amid high demand and supply constraints, Apple and Samsung enjoyed nearly 60 per cent of the global tablet market in the January-March quarter, according to a new report.

Apple iPadOS shipments (sell-in) fell 6 per cent (year-on-year) to 15.8 million units in Q1 2022, with worldwide market share climbing 1.7 percentage points to 39 per cent as the tech giant outpaced the market, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics.

Samsung led the Android market with only a 1.2 per cent decline in Q1 2022 to 8.2 million units. Its market share increased by 1.8 percentage points to 20 per cent during the same period.

Amazon was right behind Samsung growth-wise with a 1.3 per cent annual decline and 3.7 million shipments. Its market share grew 0.8 percentage points to 9 per cent.

For the second quarter in a row, Microsoft broke into the top 5 ranking globally in Q1 2022 with 1.4 million tablets shipped at a 1 per cent annual growth rate.

"Android tablet market share is at a new low of 50 per cent, but competition has heated up among Android vendors looking to grab market share from Huawei's smaller device footprint as well as the fast-shrinking white box market," said Chirag Upadhyay, industry analyst.

However, a better than expected start to 2022 may be short-lived however, as Covid restrictions in China, additional logistic and inflationary pressures, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine all threaten to hold back supply going forward.

"Apple's recovery from the supply constraints of last quarter was equally impressive as they actually grew shipments sequentially. That's unheard of in this business, but with more disruptive factors at play, we should come to expect the unexpected," said Eric Smith, director, connected computing.