Of the top tablet brands, only Lenovo and Samsung increased market share: IDC

IDC’s latest Q4 2013 report of global tablet shipments showed only Lenovo (HKG:0992) and Samsung (KRX:005935) increased their market share among the top five brands.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) still holds a firm position at the top with 33.8 percent of the market, but that figure fell 4.4 percent year-on-year. South Korea’s Samsung, in second place, gained a hefty 5.8 percent of the market and shipments grew 85.9 percent year-on-year. China’s Lenovo rounded out the top five growing from 1.3 to 4.4 percent market share. That might not seem like much, but Lenovo’s shipments more than tripled in the past year.

“Lenovo’s access to the Chinese whitebox manufacturing infrastructure has helped it drive more low-priced tablet products into the market,” says IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani. “The company’s strength in emerging markets, and its increased market share in adjoining markets such as PCs and smartphones, makes it well positioned to see additional tablet gains in 2014.”

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Asus (TPE:2357) make up the remaining spots in the top five. Amazon’s market share dipped from 9.9 to 7.6 percent, while Asus held a steady 5.1 percent.

Worldwide, IDC estimates 76.9 million tablets were shipped in Q4 2013, which comes out to 62.4 percent growth over Q3 2013 and 28.2 percent on Q4 2012. In all of 2013, 217.1 million units were shipped, up from 144.2 million in 2012.

(Image credit: Flickr user IntelFreePress)

(Editing by Steven Millward)