According to a report by NPD DisplaySearch, Apple's iPad continues to be the market leader in the tablet category for the first quarter of 2012. The company has shipped 13.6 million iPads during this period and registered a whopping growth of 162 percent year-on-year. With this, Apple now commands 62.8 percent share of the tablet PC market.
The report further states that Samsung is now at the second spot with 7.5 percent market share. The Korean chaebol shipped 1.6 million tablet computers in the first quarter of 2012 to displace Amazon from the number two position. This growth for Samsung can be attributed to the company's aggressive performance in the European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) markets.
Amazon with its Kindle tablets stands at number three, with four percent share followed by RIM and Asus in the fourth and fifth spots respectively.
It is interesting to note that in this quarter, Barnes & Noble has fallen out of the top five. Recently, Microsoft had invested $300million in Barnes and Noble's Nook e-book reader. Motorola and HTC too were not able to make a position for themselves in this quarter's A league.
Additionally, Apple's iPad continued to be a dominating position in the mobile PC segment (notebooks, netbooks and tablets) as well by shipping 17.2 million mobile PCs in first quarter of 2012. The company registered a growth of 118 percent year-on-year.