Worldwide sales of tablets trigger

Global Tablet shipments more than doubled in the first quarter and, while Apple has continued as the largest seller, Asian manufacturers that make appliances with lower prices accounted for a large part of the growth, according to a report.

Tablet shipments reached 49.2 million units in the period from January to March, 142.4% more than in same period in 2012, according to market research firm IDC, on Wednesday. The Apple iPads accounted for 19.5 million units, an increase of 65.3%.

Samsung, Asus, Amazon and Microsoft all have recorded growth of their shipments of tablets, and have increased their market share against Apple.

But the biggest jump in market share came from other Asian manufacturers that produce low-cost devices sold globally to customers including Staples, Toys R Us, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Toshiba, said IDC analyst Ryan Reith. "There is no doubt that the growth is at the lower end of the market," said Reith. "Are 80 to 100 vendors distributing no-name brands in the world – and those are just the ones that we can get a sense."

Consignments of tablets out of the five largest manufacturers rose to 15.5 million units in the first quarter, and accounted for almost a third of the market, up to a quarter of the market share in the previous year, according to the report.

This growth helped to boost the market share of tablets that work with the Android platform above the iOS from Apple for the first time. Tablets Android accounted for 56.5% of sales in the March quarter, compared with a percentage of 39.6% for iPads. Tablets running the new Microsoft's Windows and Windows RT platforms accounted for 3.7% of total shipments.