Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

By Larry Dignan | March 10, 2011, 6:56am PST

IDC said that 10.1 million media tablets were shipped in the fourth quarter and to no one’s surprise Apple and its iPad dominated. However, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab walked away with 17 percent market share.

What remains to be seen is how the availability of the iPad 2 on Friday changes the equation in the first and second quarters. Also: Apple’s iPad 2 launch: Here comes the obsession over long lines

IDC also delivered its e-reader scorecard and Amazon’s Kindle dominated. More than 6 million e-readers shipped in the fourth quarter.

According to IDC’s statement:

Apple’s tablet share fell from 93 percent in the third quarter to 73 percent in the fourth.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab had 17 percent share in the fourth quarter, but isn’t expected to keep it for long. Samsung is prepping a larger Galaxy Tab based on Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
Almost 18 million tablets shipped in 2010.
The e-reader category is much more competitive with Amazon as well as Pandigital, Barnes & Noble, Sony and others showing gains. Amazon holds 48 percent market share in e-readers followed by Pandigital at No. 2 and Barnes & Noble.
There were 12.8 million e-readers shipped in 2010.
IDC is projecting 50 million tablets will ship in 2011.
Apple is expected to maintain a 70 percent to 80 percent market share in tablets.

IDC’s scorecard comes at an interesting time. Apple is about to launch its iPad 2 and a bevy of Android devices such as Motorola’s Xoom are hitting the market. Early reviews of the Xoom indicate that the device is notable, but flawed by frequent software crashes. Android tablets are likely to improve as the year progresses.

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Topics

E-reader, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Apple Inc., International Data Corp., E-reader Category, Tablets, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

katleo123 18th Mar 2011

Hope I could get my hands on the Honeycomb as early as possible. Video chat and a 3D, vector-based Google Maps makes honeycomb the most awaited one.
http://www.techreign.com/2011/01/next-android-honeycomb/

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WHY?!

Hasam1991 10th Mar 2011

I own a samsung Galaxy S and it is a piece of S*** I feel sorry for those buying Samsung tablets...

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Well, why did you buy one?

Tigertank 10th Mar 2011

@Hasam1991
[(Your answer) x 10.1] x 0.17

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

ksarkies@... Updated - 10th Mar 2011

@Tigertank
Presumably he didn't know it till he bought it. The reviews are glowing! Pity he doesn't tell us WHY it is so bad (are you listening @Hasam1991 ?)

Anyway he is referring to the S not the Tab.

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IDC eReader Tracker

Dietrich T. Schmitz, ~ Your Linux Advocate 10th Mar 2011

Larry,
Does the statistical data rely on a user's actual use of an eReader on their Tablet?

If so, maybe there should be another method to include those who don't, yes?

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

samalie 10th Mar 2011

@Dietrich T. Schmitz, Your Linux Advocate Or perhaps this is just one of those areas where Linux sucks ass?

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

dheady@... 10th Mar 2011

As I believe the venerable Samuel Clemens once said, "There's lies, damned lies, and statistics." Numbers are fun.

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

daboochmeister 10th Mar 2011

@dheady@... Twain attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli, though I've heard that it's not in anything Disraeli wrote that people can find.

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Reply

zeth06 13th Mar 2011

@daboochmeister

Touche.

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What is this?

Robert Hahn 10th Mar 2011

It's impossible to tell from the IDC article whether "shipments" (and hence Samsung's 17% market share) refers to sales by Samsung to resellers, or actual sell-through to end user customers.

Knowing a little bit about distribution in Asia, I suspect it's the former, because March seems a bit early to know the end user sales from the Byzantine distribution channels in Korea and Japan.

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what does this 'Shipped' mean?

Davewrite Updated - 10th Mar 2011

we've gone through this before already with Strategic Analytics earlier claims which were debunked when Samsung later itself said that 2 million were shipped but not all were sold to consumers. Samsung said that sales were 'quite small' which they later amended by saying they mean't 'quite smooth' but that doesn't jive with the rest of their release which says 'wasnt as fast as we expected'.

Samsung official statement:
:"Well, your question was on sell-in and sell-out. As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive and this first quarterly result was quite, you know, fourth-quarter unit [figure] was around two million. Then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite small. We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasnt as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK."

People have calculated that maybe a million of the 2 might be sitting on shelves unsold.
Significantly after Jobs attacked Tab sales samsung still did not release figures (that I know of)

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That's a misquote.

matthew_maurice 10th Mar 2011

@Davewrite It's pretty much established that he said "in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite smooth." What exactly "smooth" is, I don't know. But he really didn't say "small." FWIW.

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"sell out wasn't as fast as expected" = smooth ?

Davewrite Updated - 10th Mar 2011

@matthew_maurice

well ok
if that's 'smooth' then that's sort of sad. If sell out wasn't fast= smooth. Then if sell out was GREAT than it would be what? SUPER smooth? that's corporate double talk if I ever read any,

So What are the actual sales numbers? returns?

fact is all these IDC things are based conjecture.

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How did you get Apple 73%? 100-17= 83

Davewrite Updated - 10th Mar 2011

"Apple?s tablet share fell from 93 percent in the third quarter to 73 percent in the fourth."

when

the IDC press release from idc.com has this headline (I copy and paste)

"
IDC - Press Release
"Nearly 18 Million Media Tablets Shipped in 2010 with Apple Capturing 83% Share; eReader Shipments Quadrupled to More Than 12 Million, According to IDC "

http://www.idc.com/about/viewpressrelease.jsp?containerId=prUS22737611§ionId=null&elementId=null&pageType=SYNOPSIS

Is this another MISQUOTE? you know like 'quite smooth' ...
seems to happen all the time with iPad vs rivals numbers...

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Huh?

daboochmeister 10th Mar 2011

@Davewrite - Apple had 83% for all of 2010, 73% for the 4th quarter, in that 4th quarter, Samsung had 17%, other vendors the remaining 10%. The 83% for 2010 and 17% for Samsung in 4th quarter are a coincidence, that they add up to 100%.

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daboochmeister you are right. I stand corrected.

Davewrite 10th Mar 2011

daboochmeister

nt.

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

Peter Perry 10th Mar 2011

@matthew_maurice I had one of these and I loved using it. The galaxy tab was well thought out in terms of features but unfortunately Samsung Build Quality got in the way and I went through 2 of these before deciding to return it and try the Xoom.

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Tab is a joke!

browser. 10th Mar 2011

Galaxy tablets are a joke. I played around one and immediately thought this has to be the worst tablet ever. The screen is neither here nor there, cannot port it as good as a smartphone, cannot use all those "HD" apps. The hardware is so clunky and the screen responsiveness is tilting towards zero. I think we need to ask Eric Schmidt to be back on Apple's board. Without his insights on what Apple is doing with iPad and its OS, Google has become clueless and now it is trying to copy MSFT! Honeycomb is one geek of an OS. I would never suggest it to my mom and pop

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RE: Apple dominates tablet shipments, but Samsung Galaxy Tab takes share, says IDC

dave95. Updated - 10th Mar 2011

In 2010, the Tab was basically the only true alternative to the iPad (sadly running a blown-up phone OS), so those not wanting an iPad bought Galaxy Tabs (nothing else). I do wonder how many were returned. This year it will be a couple different Tablets all running Honeycomb and all competing in that 'iPad alternative' space. We will see Samsung share drop some as the 'iPad alternative' market is now shared by Honeycomb competitors.

The tablet market will double this year. Apple's the iPad sales is also expected to more than double. If IDC is expecting 50 million tablets this year, then I would say Apple will gobble-up 30-40 million of those, easily.