Apple’s iPad still remains, by far, the tablet market leader. As reported by ABI Research, Apple shipped 11.8 million of iPads in the first quarter of this year.
The colossal iPad sales were due to the release of the 3rd generation iPad as well as price reductions in the iPad 2. Pretty astounding given the fact that the new iPad was released on March 16th, just a mere two weeks shy of quarter end. Apple leads the market with nearly 65% of worldwide units and has shipped more that 67 million iPads in its first eight quarters of availability.
Samsung placed a very distant second with 1.1 million devices shipped. Amazon’s Kindle Fire saw a significant drop in sales after experiencing brisk sales during the holiday season in Q4 2011.
Coming later this year are retooled tablets by Dell, HP, and LG with Android 4.0 as well as the much anticipated Windows 8-based tablets.
