Apple is slowly losing tablet ground to Samsung, Q1 2024 shipment figures show

There was a time when Apple led the tablet market by a wide margin but as competition stepped up, the company slowly started losing market share. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the Cupertino giant hasn't released a new tablet in 18 months, putting it in danger of losing its dominance to Samsung.

According to tablet shipment data for the first quarter of 2024 released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the tablet market achieved modest year-on-year growth of 0.5 percent after a slump of more than two years. The last time the category saw growth was back in the second quarter of 2021.

The growth was spurred by "the start of a refresh cycle" and though sales aren't likely to return to the high seen during the pandemic, it's a positive sign for the industry that people are gravitating towards pricey tablets due to their productivity-centric features.

A combination of poor economy and a lack of new models resulted in an 8.5 percent year-over-year decline for Apple. Despite that, it managed to ship 9.9 million units - more than any other manufacturer - and stick to the number one spot. The company will announce new tablets tomorrow.

Samsung saw a smaller decline of 5.8 percent and managed to sell 6.7 million tablets in Q1 2024. While that still puts it behind Apple, a quick look at Q4 2022 figures which show that Apple had 49.2 percent of the market and Samsung was a distant second with 16.8 percent of the pie is enough to tell us that the South Korean giant, which makes one of the best Android tablets you can buy, is slowly becoming a threat for Apple.

Huawei retained the third sport and posted impressive year-over-year growth of 43.6 percent. The Chinese company shipped 2.9 million units during the quarter and it's believed that a rebound in its smartphone business also lifted tablet sales.

Lenovo was fourth with year-on-year gains of 13.2 percent while Xiaomi saw an impressive growth of 92.6 percent.