The two biggest PC vendors in Taiwan — Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asutsek Computer Inc (華碩) — fared very differently in media tablet shipments last quarter, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corp’s (IDC) worldwide quarterly media tablet tracker.
Asustek ranked fourth in global tablet shipments last quarter, with shipments rising 115.5 percent to 855,454 units from 397,048 units a year ago, IDC said in the release.
“It’s worth noting that shipments of the well-received Google/Asus co-branded Nexus 7 aren’t reflected in these totals, as that product officially began shipping into the channel in the third quarter of 2012,” IDC said.
However, Acer was the only one in the top five worldwide tablet vendors reporting a yearly decline, with shipments falling 38.7 percent to 385,458 units last quarter from 629,222 units a year ago, IDC said.
The market researcher said total worldwide tablet shipments for last quarter were estimated at 25 million units, up 33.6 percent from 18.7 million in the first quarter and 66.2 percent higher than the 15 million during the same period last year.
Apple, the market leader, shipped 17 million iPads last quarter, up from 11.8 million units in the first quarter and well above its previous record of 15.4 million in the fourth quarter of last year. It was followed by Samsung Electronics Co with 2.4 million units last quarter, while Amazon.com Inc shipped 1.2 million units, IDC’s data showed.
IDC expects competition in the tablet space to continue to heat up in the second half.
“In addition to major new products from Amazon and quite likely Apple, we can also expect an influx of Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows RT-based tablets starting in late October,” said Bob O’Donnell, program vice president, Clients and Displays.
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