Top 5 Best-Selling Tablets By Brand

Best-Selling Tablets

Tablets are rapidly becoming the personal computer of choice, recently taking a toll on desktop and laptop sales across many major brands. According to a May 2013 report by The NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research company that provides sales-out data from leading technology distributors, here is a "Top 5" breakdown of the best-selling tablet brands for May. (The NPD Group's DistributorTrack sales database is comprised primarily of U.S. Global Technology Distribution Council members.)

The tablet data does not include Apple data.

5. Asus

Though still a strong fifth-place holder for best-selling tablet brand, Asus dropped nearly 12 market share points from the previous May, from 22.4 to 10.6 points. Asus' popular MeMO Pad line runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.1 and has a Nvidia Tegra Quad-Core processor. Asus' VivoTab line sports tablets running either Windows RT or Windows 8. The VivoTabs can be docked easily into a keyboard for higher production purposes. Of the top 10 best-selling tablet products, Asus did not have a best-seller for the month of May.

4. Google Nexus

New to the tablet market since the previous year, Google Nexus jumped from nonexistent to claiming 12.7 market share points. The Google Nexus 7 tablet, made by Asus, was the No. 3 best-selling tablet overall in the month of May. The 7-inch, 16-GB tablet was the first to ship with Android Jelly Bean 4.1. After the original Google Nexus 7 Tablet proved popular, an all-new Google Nexus 7 tablet was released in July, loaded with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

3. Lenovo

Increasing 9.7 market share points from May 2012, Lenovo lands in the No. 3 spot for best-selling tablet brand for the month of May. Lenovo's tablet contenders came from the ThinkPad line, specifically the 10.1-inch, 64-GB ThinkPad Tablet 2. The ThinkPad Tablet 2 runs the Windows 8 operating system and a 1.8-GHz Intel Atom Processor. The tablet also comes loaded with Office Home and Student 2013 software.

2. Panasonic

Runner-up to Samsung, Panasonic was the second-best-selling tablet brand for the month of May. The hottest-selling Panasonic tablet was the 10.1- inch, 16-GB tablet, the Toughpad FZ-A1. The rugged Android tablet is water- and wind-resistant and can withstand being dropped from up to four feet. The FZ-A1 is also FIPS 140-2-compliant and has dedicated security core for data encryption. In addition to the FZ-A1, the 10.1-inch Toughbook H2 also made the list of top 10 best-selling tablets for the month of May. Panasonic experienced a 9.1 market share point increase from the previous May.

1. Samsung

Increasing 7.8 market share points since the previous May, Samsung claimed the title for best-selling tablet brand for the month. Samsung's hottest items were the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2 and the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 2. Both tablets originally came loaded with Android Ice Cream Sandwich and support voice calling, videoconference and AllShare Play, a feature that allows sharing media between devices. Samsung's XE700 Tablet and the 10.1-inch Galaxy Note were also among the top 10 best-selling tablets for the month of May.