Apple's once seemingly indomitable grasp on the UK tablet market took another blow last week when it was revealed the iPad's marketshare fell by 10% in three months, according to YouGov.
Despite the release of the iPad Mini and the new iPad towards the end of last year, Apple's marketshare for the first quarter of 2013 fell from 73 per cent to 63 per cent.
In a sign of the changing fortunes of the major tech producers, Samsung's share rose to 10 per cent from six at the end of 2012, according to the YouGov’s Quarterly Tablet Tracker.
But while the proportion of tablets may have changed, the figures do not mean Apple necessarily saw a fall in sales. It would be possible for iPad sales to rise, but still lose marketshare compared to other companies starting from lower installed user bases.
The iPad Mini could not prevent the slump
The introduction of the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Google Nexus also stole sales from Apple with market-shares of five and eight percent respectively.
Some of the fall can be attributed to inexpensive products flooding the market however with Samsung, Google and Amazon all upping their game, the future for Apple could continue to get tougher.
John Gilbert, Consulting Director of YouGov Technology & Telecoms, said: "It seems that Apple no longer has a monopoly on the “premium” share as other brands emerge with near-equal satisfaction scores... we anticipate Apple to lose additional share throughout the coming year to Samsung, Google and Amazon."
The survey did have some good news for Apple. Its iPad Mini gets the highest scores for satisfaction and eight of the nine quality attributes.
Apple will release its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, amid speculation it may report a rare fall in profits.