Tablet shipments estimated to have risen 29.8% year-over-year in fourth quarter

Global shipments of tablets are estimated to have reached 78.45 million units in the fourth quarter, according to a published report. That works out to a 29.8% rise from the 2012 period, and a sequential gain of 25%. The Apple iPad accounted for 29.7% of the slates shipped, or 23.3 million units. Brand models from manufacturers other than Apple made up 36.6% of the tablets, and white-box vendors accounted for 33.8%.

Breaking it down by operating system, Android powered models represented a majority of slates shipped at 51.2%, followed by the 44.9% owned by the iOS, and the 3.9% that were powered by Windows. 31% of the total were 7 inch slabs while 25.4% had a 9 inch screen. 7.9 inch tablets accounted for 19.7% of the slates in transit, while 10 inch tablets made up 15.8%. 8 inch models accounted for 7.6% of tablets shipped in the quarter.

Thanks to the continued strength of the iPad, Apple led the list of manufacturers with 29.7% of the tablet market in Q4, followed by Samsung's 17.4%. Amazon was next with 5.4%, followed by Lenovo with 4.2% and Asus with 2.8%. Google (1.4%), Acer (1%) , Dell (0.8%) and Hewlett-Packard (0.5%) round out the list.

source: DigiTimes