More Than Two Thirds of World's Media Tablets are iPad Devices, IDC Says

The thing about trying to stop a runaway freight train is you have to have something big and strong enough to stop the momentum. That's the challenge tablet makers face in trying to compete with the iPad's market dominance, and apparently the recent trend towards 7-inch slates isn't going to cut it. To wit, rather than chip away at the iPad's lead, Apple's tablet increased its global market share to 68.2 percent in the second quarter of 2012, according to data compiled by International Data Corporation (IDC).

Apple's share of the tablet market is up from 61.5 percent from the same quarter one year prior. The remaining top five looks like this:

• Samsung: 9.6 percent (up from 7.3 percent)
• Amazon: 5 percent (up from 0 percent)
• Asus: 3.4 percent (up from 2.6 percent)
• Acer: 1.5 percent (down from 4.2 percent)
• Others: 12.3 percent (down from 24.4 percent)

"Apple built upon its strong March iPad launch and ended the quarter with its best-ever shipment total for the iPad, outrunning even the impressive shipment record it set in the fourth quarter of last year," said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices. "The vast majority of consumers continue to favor the iPad over competitors, and Apple is seeing increasingly strong interest in the device from vertical markets—especially education. While iPad shipment totals are beginning to slow a bit in mature markets where the device saw early traction, growth in other regions is clearly more than making up the difference."

There were 17 million iPads shipped in Q2, up from 11.8 million units shipped in the previous quarter. That's also a fair bit higher than Apple's previous record of 15.4 million shipments set in the fourth quarter of 2011. It will be interesting to see what impact upcoming Windows RT tablets will have on iPad shipments.