Samsung's a kid in Apple's tablet market

Despite restructuring its premium tablet lineup last year, Samsung hasn't seen much shipment growth in Q3 2025. The Korean tech giant couldn't make a dent in Apple's iPad in the third quarter, and shipments stagnated.

Samsung held onto 2nd place in terms of global tablet shipments, but its year-on-year growth didn't look so good. Five of its rivals increased shipments, but Samsung's remained the same.

In terms of global shipment market share, Apple covered 34% of the tablet market and increased shipments by 4% year-on-year.

Samsung's shipment share year-on-year dropped by 1%, and its overall shipment growth stagnated (via Counterpoint Research).

Rivals like Lenovo, Huawei, Amazon, and Xiaomi have also more or less maintained a similar shipment market share, but they were all able to ship more units in Q3 2025 at the cost of shipments from other brands, which dropped 7%.

The Galaxy Z TriFold is a pure hybrid device that combines the Galaxy phone and tablet experience into one. When unfolded, the TriFold offers the same experience as a premium Galaxy tablet. It even runs DeX on-device, becoming the first phone to do so.

But is it really a phone? It's a hybrid. And it will be interesting to see if TriFold sales and shipments will count as tablet sales and shipments in the future.

Either way, the Galaxy Z TriFold will be released in very few markets, so it won't help Samsung push its market share by much either way.

However, the future could look very different once the TriFold or its sequel goes on sale globally. It might be what Samsung needs to challenge Apple more closely.