Despite a market that has seen its first year-over-year decline since inception and lackluster sales of Apple's refresh, Apple's iPad line of tablets still leads the pack and maintained nearly twice the share of the sector as rival Samsung.
The tablet market's growth had been slowing before Apple refreshed the iPad Air and Mini series. Leaks of the Apple tablet's specs, which were later confirmed, gave analysts little hope that the products could spur the market.
Some analysts expected the gravity generated by late adopters to pull the tablet market toward the lower end of the spectrum, territory that Samsung and Apple have avoided, but the tablet sector of computing still depends heavily on the top two players, according to IDC Research's latest report on worldwide tablet sales.
"Although Apple expanded its iPad lineup by keeping around older models and offering a lower entry price point of $249, it still wasn't enough to spur iPad sales given the excitement around the launch of the new iPhones," says Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. "Meanwhile, Samsung's struggles continued as low-cost vendors are quickly proving that mid- to high-priced Android tablets simply aren't cut out for today's tablet market."
While the iPad isn't going anywhere anytime soon, the Apple tablet is suffering from heavy cannibalization similar to the situation that killed the iPod Classic. The iPad is being gnawed away at the top end by Macs and from the bottom by iPhones, especially now that the latest Apple smartphones feature larger screens.
Apple's share of the tablet market stood at approximately 27.6 percent on the year and it was 28.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. Samsung held about a 17.5 percent share in 2014 and about 14.5 percent in the last quarter.
Despite Samsung's general struggles, IDC Research says the Korean tech company managed to meet its goal of moving 40 million tablets in 2014. Those units moved saw Samsung tablets climb about 1.1 percent, year over year.
Both Samsung and Apple have seen contraction last year, with the former declining by around 18.4 percent in 2014 and the later dropping about 17.8 percent. But while the tablet market is seeing slowdown -- with its top players witnessing contraction and the lower-end players failing to step up, Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director of IDC's Tablets division, says his organization is still forecasting growth for the market in 2015.
"Microsoft's new OS, a general shift towards larger screen form factor and productivity-focused solutions, and technology innovations such as gesture interface that could be introduced in tablets will help the market maintain positive growth in 2015," says Bouchard.
