And you thought their rivalry was restricted to just the smartphone space. In what can probably make the battle fiercer, according to a recent market research done by Canalys, both Apple and Samsung have made it to the list of the top 5 PC makers. Confused? That’s because the company included tablets in the category, and made Apple the leader – having shipped 27 million units during the last quarter of 2012.
Following Apple were HP and Lenovo as 2 and 3 respectively, after shipping around 15 million units. Samsung came in fourth, accounting for around 9 percent of the share and shipping 11.7 million PC units. 7.6 million units among this number were tablets from Samsung. The consumption of tablets is continuously growing, as confirmed by this research. Canalys has also featured Amazon in this list, having shipped 18 percent more tablets during 2012 than in 2011.
Apple was anyway leading in the tablet world, thanks to its most popular iPad. However, even though the iPad 4 wasn’t too well received, it did have the advantage of the iPad Mini that it introduced last year, which helped it stay on top. According to estimates, nearly half of Apple’s shipments were iPad Mini tablets.
Microsoft, the newest entrant in the tablet space, managed to rake up 3 percent share in the tablet market, after shipping over 700,000 Surface tablets. But while the new players emerge as leaders, it only spells bad news for traditional PC leaders like Dell, which registered a 19 percent drop down to 9.7 million units since 2011.
