While the global market for tablets surged 78.4 percent last year, it looks like Apple is being left behind.
Research firm IDC said tablets made up 10.7 percent of the global market last year for "smart connected devices". Now IDC analysts have continued to suck on the bong, giggle and claim that "smart connected devices" should include smartphones, notebooks and PCs before looking for a sandwich.
Last year, IDC says, the market leader was Apple, but this year Samsung overtook Cupertino with an overall market share of 20.8 percent.
Overall, the market for these devices grew 29 percent to 1.2 billion, according to IDC, with growth in tablets and smartphones at a 46 percent rise which offset declines in PC sales.
Due to IDC's unique methods which puts tablets in the same class as PCs, which are never upgraded in a recession, this has meant that IDC can make some startling leaps of logic which mark the whole report.
For example, IDC can say that although tablet sales sizzled, they have not yet eclipsed sales of traditional PCs. Well, no, but neither have they eclipsed the sales of Jelly Babies.
IDC data showed a 3.4 percent drop in portable PC sales to 202 million and a 4.1 percent decline in desktop PC sales to 148.4 million.
These were dwarfed by the 722 million smartphones sold last year, IDC said. Of course they were also dwarfed by the sales of Smarties last year. If you think the comparison is not like for like, try to use Adobe CS 5.5 on a smartphone - after a few moments you will probably find that running it on a Smartie is more effective.
Smartphones and tablets are growing at a pace that PCs cannot keep up with, said enthused IDC analyst Ryan Reith. This is assuming that they are in the same race. It is more likely that PCs are in a race on a different track in another part of the country.
When IDC starts looking at the situation more reasonably, rather than just peddling this "tablets have replaced PCs" line, there are figures that are actually interesting. For example, the price of tablets has fallen by 15 per cent in the last year and is expected to go lower.
Smartphone prices averaged $US408 and are generally replaced more often than other devices.
In the overall market for connected devices, Samsung rose to the top position with at least 20 percent of the market in each category, and an overall market share of 20.8 per cent, overtaking last year's leader Apple.
Apple held 18.2 per cent of the market for 2012, up from 16.3 per cent in 2011. The maker of the iPhone and iPad saw 44 percent growth for the year but was unable to keep pace with Samsung, which more than doubled its sales.
Coming in at number three was Lenovo with a 6.5 percent market share in all devices, followed by HP with 4.8 percent and Dell at 3.2 percent.