[NewsPoster]

Although the iPad remains the best-selling tablet, Apple's share of the tablet market dropped 8.1 points year-over-year during the last quarter -- albeit based on shipments rather than actual sales to end users, according to new iDC numbers. Shipments rose from 15.1 million to 22.9 million, but the company's marketshare dipped from 51.7 percent to 43.6 percent. Much of the lost ground was claimed by Samsung, which saw share rise from 7.3 percent to 15.1 percent, and shipments rise from 2.2 million to 7.9 million. ASUS also made large strides, advancing from a two percent share and just 600,000 shipments to a 5.8 percent share and 3.1 million tablets shipped.

A combined "others" category saw its share increase from 18.5 percent to 22.1 percent, a rise from 5.5 million units to 11.6. Two major brands, meanwhile, saw their influence slip -- the first being Amazon, which while growing shipments from 4.7 million to six million also witnessed its share fall from 15.9 percent to 11.5. Barnes & Noble suffered a loss in both shipments and share, selling one million Nooks versus 1.4 million the year before, causing share to drop from 4.6 percent to 1.9 percent. Samsung's surge is attributable to a mix of Android and Windows tablets, while ASUS' performance is presumably linked mainly to the Google Nexus 7, which it manufactures. The company is also responsible for the notebook-like Transformer Pad series of tablets. Actual sales figures are generally unavailable from most tablet manufacturers apart from Apple, and so whether or not the shipments will turn into end-users remains to be seen, but the numbers do cast a shadow on Apple in terms of increased competitiveness from rivals.

[Gazoobee]

reporting such numbers? They are obviously BS and likely based on shipped/produced product instead of actual sales or usage stats.

Anyone who believes Apple has anything less than 80-90% of the tablet market completely sewn up is just a fool. It doesn't help when sites like this repeat this nonsense either.

[prl99]

This is what happens when the market is saturated with cheap knockoffs. Numbers can always be twisted but the only ones that really matter are purchased tablets and profit (at least for AAPL investors). Apple leads in both areas by a long shot. Just because a company can make several million cheap pieces of plastic doesn't mean they'll be used by anyone for very long.

Sorry, what company other than Apple reported end user sales numbers?

[ElectroTech]

Apple makes and sells lots of iPads that people love and get great pleasure out of. Apple makes enough profit from the sale of these iPads to dwarf the industry and people make more use of the iPad than any other tablet thing out there. Apple products are not 'out in the channel' but in the hands of customers and these devices stay there. Can the rest of the wannabes claim the same?

[ZinkDifferent]

Shipments, not sales.

The Samsung trial has sown the actual relationship to sales, when Samsung only sold 27,000 tablets on claimed shipments of 3 million, and only 230,000 phones on claimed shipments of several million more.

[ZinkDifferent]

Shipments, not sales.

The Samsung trial has sown the actual relationship to sales, when Samsung only sold 27,000 tablets on claimed shipments of 3 million, and only 230,000 phones on claimed shipments of several million more.

[mojkarma]

I guess that Apple has more control about the sales numbers. They have their own stores and verified sellers. It's quite easy to control the actual sales numbers. Not so for Samsung I guess.
Besides that, I don't understand why some of you insist on this childish "sales vs. shipping" numbers. If Samsung wouldn't sell a certain amount of its products, do you really think they would still ship a new contingent of a product? is anybody so naive to believe in that?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by mojkarma 

I guess that Apple has more control about the sales numbers. They have their own stores and verified sellers. It's quite easy to control the actual sales numbers. Not so for Samsung I guess.
Besides that, I don't understand why some of you insist on this childish "sales vs. shipping" numbers. If Samsung wouldn't sell a certain amount of its products, do you really think they would still ship a new contingent of a product? is anybody so naive to believe in that?

Yes.

That is exactly what has been happening the past few years, and it's part of why Apple's profits are so off the charts compared to ALL competitors.

Samsung can just as easily estimate how many products have actually sold (I'm sure they have distribution deals in place that require reporting of overstocking and allow returns of unsold stock).

Their insistence on reporting "shipments" is deliberate smokescreen to game the numbers: Most people don't buy a loser, regardless of how good it may be, and a sure-fire way to guarantee that people don't buy a product is to show that it isn't selling.

[panjandrum]

Well, the unfortunate reality (as unpopular as that may be here on occasion) is that we are, right now, very likely seeing a blow-by-blow replay of Mac vs. Windows. Apple's obsessive control (along with some other bad recent decisions) is not playing well with the buying public anymore. Add to this that many of the Android products are finally usable by non-techy types, and there you have the makings for the slow degradation of Apple's domination. I currently work with 200+ "Mac" users every day, many of them the youth who will be buying these products for years and years to come, and two years ago there was nothing except "iPad iPad iPad". But that has all changed. In the real-world, not at Apple "fan" sites, it has changed and changed dramatically. At a guess Android tablets (and phones) in this sample-set are now outselling the iPad and iPhone somewhere between 2 and 3 to 1. The main reason? Control - this set of people has learned that when they buy an Apple device they don't get full control of it. As wonderful as these Apple products are, it is as if you've never really purchased the product - as if Apple still owns it. Time and time again I hear that as a primary reason for choosing elsewhere. Apple needs to stop being a corporate asshat and change their ways, or the devices that you and I love will soon be marginalized.

[Spheric Harlot]

The computer market in 1984 was VASTLY different from the mobile phone market in 2007 in several key ways:

Numbers were tiny. Really tiny.
Mobile phone are ubiquitous. Apple has sold 320 MILLION of them. Nobody buys a smartphone without knowing about the iPhone and comparing to it.

The way the market worked in the 80s/90s, you had to have heard of Macintosh (not that likely), and then find a good reason to buy one. And the Mac was *dramatically* more expensive.

The way the smartphone market works, you have to find a good reason NOT to buy an iPhone. And the price difference isn't that great, while the severely cheaper devices are obviously inferior.

Nobody knew anybody who had a Mac, and it took the iMac plus the iPod and ten years to put them back on the map.
EVERYBODY knows somebody who has an iPhone and/or an iPad, and most everybody knows at least some total layperson who raves about the product.

Critical mass is reached, product sales are still growing like crazy.

[blahblahbber]

Excuse me Spheric, but the price differences ARE great... just look at amazon.... even knock-off of samsung android model range from $140USD for SIII to $200 USD for 6" Andriod model.

http://www.amazon.com/FWVGA-Screen-MTK6577-1-2GHz-Android/dp/B009N1AB74/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=3FN1NM3IA4UQA &coliid=I22L0B8L8F1NFB

[Jubeikiwagami]

Wow. It's that bad for Apple.

[ezylstra]

When Electornista/Macnn starts writing stories like this--that do point out the difference between shipping numbers and sales numbers, but fail to put it into perspective--it indicates a need to stop reading the reporting site. No point in arguing, unless you are hoping the site returns to rationality instead of dissembling through your prodding.

[blahblahbber]

The gravy train has crawled to a halt... And it's now public. There is the market share and stock price. The hype is over. Logging out.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by blahblahbber 

Excuse me Spheric, but the price differences ARE great... just look at amazon.... even knock-off of samsung android model range from $140USD for SIII to $200 USD for 6" Andriod model.

The flagship Samsung's cost pretty much what the iPhone costs.

The lower end is the lower end. It's understood that Apple doesn't serve that, and that the iOS devices are the gold standard everything else is compared to. This was NOT the case in the computer market – that worked exactly the opposite way round, working against Macintosh from the start.

Also, even comparing the mass market crapphones against iphone is a couple hundred dollars in a mass market vs. a price difference of several THOUSAND (80s) dollars in a fledgling computer market.

It's just a vastly different situation.

[besson3c]

Did you guys really think that the iPad would be this dominant forever, particularly given that Android is getting better and better?

[un.homme]

Both the headline and article contain faulty simple arithmetic.

What the author meant to say was "percentage points" rather than "percent", as in
"Apple loses 8.1 percentage points of shipping tablet marketshare"

The story reports the facts as:
"the company's marketshare dipped from 51.7 percent to 43.6 percent"

51.7 - 43.6 = 8.1 percentage points

To actually calculate the decline as a percentage:
( 51.7 - 43.6 ) / 51.7 = 15.7% (approximately)
or, partially calculated:
8.1 / 51.7 = 15.7% (approximately)

So the headline and article are incorrect by about half. Apple's decline in market share by percentage is almost twice as bad at about 16% rather than about 8%.

[Spheric Harlot]

Can somebody verify that there is a difference between "percentage" and "percentage points"?

It's news to me.

[Charles Martin]

Originally Posted by mojkarma 

If Samsung wouldn't sell a certain amount of its products, do you really think they would still ship a new contingent of a product? is anybody so naive to believe in that?

It is you who are naive, mi amigo.

You can SHIP a huge number of items to dealers to be sold ... but if they don't sell them, you take them back and claim a tax deduction on unsold merchandise (or at worst, write off the loss for tax purposes). This is how the book, music CD, magazine and yes, electronics industries work ... thought the former industries don't take the stuff back, they just have the dealer pulp them.

This is EXACTLY why most of the industry reports SHIPMENTS rather than sales.

Now I am not suggesting that most of what is shipped is not sold, but I am telling you that SOME of what is shipped is never sold to end users, and those manufacturers take the loss as a cost of doing business.