HP, not Samsung, was the ruler of non-iPad tablets in the US for the first ten months of the year, the NPD Group said in a new study. With just 1.2 million tablets sold at retail across every company outside of Apple, HP was the leader in the country at 17 percent, or 204,000, sold between its launch and October. The low count suggests that the fire sale $99 TouchPad, not HP’s Windows range, was the sales leader by going on clearance.
Samsung was close, but at 16 percent (192,000) faced a symbolic embarrassment. If accurate, it suggested the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and other models couldn’t outsell an HP tablet being cleared out for a lack of initial interest. Globally, Samsung has been unusually silent on shipments since it stopped reporting the original Galaxy Tab early in 2011. The company historically marks any milestone possible if strong or fast enough.
Other participants in the top five were considerably lower. ASUS’ Eee Pad Transformer gave it 10 percent, or 120,000 tablets across 2011 so far. Acer’s collected Iconia Tab Android and Windows lines, and the Motorola Xoom, each got nine percent, or about 108,000 tablets sold.
Although sales were improving from quarter to quarter, it still showed that iPad competition in the US was still struggling to get a significant foothold and could decline now that the TouchPad is officially out of the market.
