Samsung turned out to be the biggest Android tablet brand in the world during the fourth quarter of 2019. However, things don't appear so rosy when you have a look at the complete picture. Apple continues to be the dominant player in the segment, leading the overall tablet market share.
According to a new report from International Data Corporation (IDC), Samsung shipped 7 million tablets worldwide during Q4 2019. Its market share in the global market was 16.1 percent. In contrast, Huawei managed to sell just 4 million tablets during the same quarter. Amazon and Lenovo sold 3.3 million and 2.5 million tablets, respectively. Apple was the biggest tablet maker, though, successfully selling 15.9 million iPads and capturing over one-third (36.5%) of the global market.
When you consider shipment numbers for the whole year, Samsung sold 21.7 million Galaxy Tab devices, capturing 15.1 percent of the global market. Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo sold 14.1 million, 13 million, and 8.5 million tablets during the whole year, capturing 9.8 percent, 9 percent, and 5.9 percent of the market, respectively. Apple, on the other hand, sold 49.9 million iPads, capturing a 34.6 percent share of the market.
Compared to the fourth quarter of 2018, Samsung's tablet shipments fell 7.4 percent, from 7.6 million to 7 million. Its sales for the whole year fell from 23.4 million in 2018 to 21.7 million in 2019, which shows a year-over-year drop of 7.2 percent. The South Korean firm has at least one tablet with an S Pen in the pipeline, so sales numbers could rise again.
Samsung makes the best high-end Android tablets (read our Galaxy Tab S6 review) in the world, and it has a whole range of mid-range and entry-level tablets. It even makes some rugged tablets for industrial use and special variants of tablets for kids. It also launched the 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S6 recently.
