Apple's iPad business had a rough third quarter, according to new market data from research firm Omdia, which was relayed by 9to5Mac and MacMagazine.
Omdia says Apple shipped 11.5 million iPads in the third quarter of 2026. That is a 27.5 percent decline from the same period a year earlier, and it left Apple with a 36 percent share of global tablet shipments, down 2.2 percentage points year over year.
A shrinking market overall
Apple was not alone. Omdia reports that total tablet shipments fell 23 percent, from 41.8 million units in the third quarter of 2025 to 32.2 million units this year, which the firm describes as the lowest level in nearly three years.
Apple still leads the market by a wide margin. Samsung ranked second with a 16.9 percent share, followed by Lenovo at 12.7 percent, Xiaomi at 7.3 percent and Huawei at 5.7 percent.
On a year-over-year basis, Omdia's figures show Lenovo as the only top-five vendor to grow, with shipments up 11.9 percent. Huawei fell the most, down 43 percent, while Samsung slipped 21.7 percent and Xiaomi 10.6 percent. Apple's 27.5 percent drop was the second-steepest among the five.
Why shipments fell
Himani Mukka, a research manager at Omdia, pointed to supply constraints that are limiting vendors' ability to deliver meaningful specification upgrades. As a result, she said, there are fewer compelling differences between new models and their predecessors, and consumers are increasingly expected to delay purchases until more substantial improvements arrive. The report as relayed does not say what the supply constraints are.
Context
The data covers a period before Apple's latest iPad mini with an OLED display went on sale on November 6, so it does not reflect that launch. Apple has not commented on the figures, and they come from a third-party estimate rather than from the company, which does not report iPad unit sales.
The Omdia press release itself was not reviewed for this story; the figures above are as reported by 9to5Mac.
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