The Apple iPad 2
Global media shipments reached 13.6m units in the second quarter of 2011, rising by 88.9pc since the previous quarter and by 303.8pc year-over-year, according to the IDC.
The iPad 2 remained the most in-demand tablet, making up a 68.3pc share of units shipped, up from 65.7pc in the last quarter.
However, IDC expects Apple’s share in the market will fall closer to 50pc in time as more competitors enter the market.
The Android tablet market share fell from 34pc to 26.8pc, which was attributed to the emergence of RIM’s Playbook, which took up 4.9pc of the tablet market.
IDC believes that Android could further lose market share in the next quarter to 23pc before growing again to 25.9pc in the fourth quarter of 2011.
The fire sale of the HP TouchPad is expected to make a small dent in the market, with IDC predicting that WebOS will have a 4.7pc market share by the third quarter, shipping almost a million TouchPads by the end of the year. However, with no clear plan for WebOS after this period, its market share could shrink back to 0pc by the start of next year.
IDC increased its shipment forecast for all tablets from 53.5m to 62.5m units by the end of the year.
“Media tablet shipments grew at a solid pace in the second quarter, led by continued strong demand for Apple products,” said Tom Mainelli, research director for Mobile Connected Devices at IDC.
“We expect shipment totals to continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter, as additional vendors introduce more price-competitive Android products into the market and Apple works to maintain its dominance in the category.”
e-readers
While there was a dip in demand for e-readers in the second quarter of 9pc, this was attributed to the season, as year-over-year growth was 167pc.
Amazon’s Kindle remained in the lead with a 51.7pc share, while Barnes & Noble’s Nook came second at 21.2pc.
IDC expects e-reader shipments to experience significant growth through the Christmas season, shipping a predicted total of 27m units.
