Apple Inc's market share of its popular iPad dropped to 50 percent in the third quarter this fiscal year, according to new reports.
According to a latest study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the company's tablet share market fell down to 50 percent even though the number of iPad units shipped this year increased from 11 million to 14 million. The Cupertino-based firm did not roll out any new tablet in the third quarter.
It was said that Apple lost the present market share due to the intense competition from Samsung's Galaxy series and Google's Nexus 7.
"Competitors are turning up the pressure on market leader Apple," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ryan Reith, a program manager for mobile devices at IDC, as saying.
At the same time, Apple's arch rival Samsung had its share go up to 18 percent from 7 percent with the launch of the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Is iPad mini Cannibalizing Apple's Share?
Apple's latest roll out of iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad is believed to have regained the holiday quarter particularly after the company announced that over three million units of these two tablets were sold in the opening weekend. Apple did not say anything about the sales figure of iPad mini alone.
According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple sold two million to 2.5 million iPad mini units in three days after its launch, surpassing earlier expectations of 1 to 1.5 million.
"Specifically, units may increase driven by iPad Mini, but have a slight cannibalization effect, which, when factoring in the lower [average selling price], would result in revenue unchanged. We are currently modeling for 25 million total iPads including 20 million full-sized iPads and 5 million Minis in December," Munster said as quoted by the CNET
Though the latest figure announced by Apple cemented its position in the market, bulk sales of iPad mini signalled a potential problem of the device eating into the sale volume of the larger iPad. If the popularity of iPad mini does not churn out a good sales volume, the current trend will thus affect Apple negatively.
