Top 10 Best-Selling Tablet Brands Of 2014

Top Brands Emerge In The Changing Tablet Market

Despite Apple's successes in the constantly changing devices market, competitor Samsung again made gains in its tablet market share against the Cupertino, Calif.-based electronics company in 2014. The two tech giants are the leaders of the best-selling tablet market brands in 2014, and represent a variety of shifts in the market over the past year.

As tablets face pressure in sales due to their long replacement cycles and other factors, the average tablet price rose to $379.50 in 2014, up from 2013's average price of $370.83, according to NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm, which provides data from leading technology distributors.

Following are the top 10 best-selling tablet brands in 2014, according to NPD Group. The NPD Group's DistributorTrack sales database is comprised primarily of U.S. Global Technology Distribution Council members.

10. Panasonic

Panasonic Corp., a Japanese multinational electronic company headquartered in Osaka, Japan, bottomed NPD's top best-selling list of tablet brands. Panasonic took 1.2 percent of the market share for tablet sales in 2014, a slight bump up from its 0.6 percent market share in 2013.

In 2014, the company continued to scope out its niche in the ruggedized tablet market, releasing the ruggedized lightweight HD Panasonic ToughPad 4K and 7-inch Panasonic ToughPad FZ-M1, both built for mobile workers.

9. Dell

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell took ninth place in NPD's list of top 10 best-selling tablet brands in 2014, with 1.5 percent market share, a steady increase from its 0.2 percent sliver of market share the previous year.

Dell powered forward in the fall of 2014 with the release of the security-focused Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series tablet, featuring a fingerprint reader and Common Access Card reader.

The company also provided two tablet updates for the Android-powered, Intel-based Dell Venue 7 and Dell Venue 8 tablets, targeted at consumers and business users.

8. Lenovo

Lenovo's tablet space took up 2.1 units in market share in 2014, according to NPD, up from the previous year's 1.6 percent of market share.

The Beijing, China-based multinational company continued to release tablets as part of its popular Yoga series, including the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, with a 13.3-inch display. These tablets feature popular enhanced kickstands so that users can adjust the positioning of their devices.

7. Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology corporation, was No. 7 on NPD's top best-selling tablet brands list, with 2.3 percent of tablet market share, up from its previous year's share of 1.1 percent.

In 2013, the company gained 1.1 percent of the market share due to mild success with its Android-powered, Slate tablet series. But the brand's popularity was further driven in 2014, in part, by its release of the HP ElitePad 1000, a 10.1-inch tablet running on a 64-bit Intel Atom quad-core processor.

6. Acer

Acer took sixth place in NPD's best-selling tablet brands list, with 3 percent market share in 2014, facing substantial growth from the previous year's 1.2 percent tablet market share.

While the Taiwanese company lost share in 2013, it bumped up sales in 2014. Acer's popularity in 2014 stemmed from its release of two Iconia Android tablet series during the year: the 7.9-inch Android powered Iconia A1-830, featuring an aluminum rear display and 1,024-x-768 resolution, and the 7-inch, 16-GB storage Iconia B1-720 tablet.

5. Microsoft

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft saw high levels of share growth in 2014, gaining 3.3 percent tablet market share in 2014. That figure was well above 2013's 0.6 percent market share, and brought Microsoft to the No. 5 spot on NPD's list of best-selling tablet brands.

The company released the next device in its Surface Pro series, the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, in 2014. This 12-inch device with an HD display represented a lighter alternative to its predecessors and featured up to 9 hours of battery life.

4. Google Nexus

Google's tablet shipments fell in 2014 from the previous year, but it still ranked above Microsoft to land in fourth place on NPD's best-selling tablet brand list. In 2014, the company took 4.1 percent, while in 2013 the Mountain View, Calif.-based company took 9.2 percent of market share, according to NDP.

The company's mobile tablet line features the Nexus 9, the latest in the Nexus series. Manufactured by HTC, this tablet is powered by Google's Android operating system and has an 8.9-inch LCD display. The tablet also features BoomSound speakers and a lightweight design.

3. ASUS

ASUS saw a slight decline in tablet market share in 2014, dropping from 5 percent share in 2013 to 4.9 percent share in 2014. The Taiwanese company ranked No. 3 on NPD's best-selling tablet brand list.

Though ASUS struggled to retain its tablet market share in 2014, it announced a broad tablet lineup during the year, including the ASUS MeMO Pad, Fonepad and Transformer Pad Series. All models featured ASUS ZenUI, Intel CPUs and Android operating systems.

2. Samsung

While NPD's No. 1 vendor Apple saw a decrease in its tablet market share, Samsung saw some gains in share in 2014, up to 19.3 percent share in 2014 from the previous year's share of 15.8 percent.

Samsung rolled out its Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 in June 2014, a 10.5-inch HD thin tablet, as well as the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 released in February 2014, an Android-powered 12.2-inch tablet.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab series did relatively well in 2014, with the 7-inch wireless touch screen white Galaxy Tab 4 taking fourth place on NPD's 2014 best-selling tablet model list, and its Galaxy Tab 3 brown and white versions, taking 9th and 10th place, respectively.

1. Apple

While the Cupertino, Calif.-based company saw record-breaking smartphone sales in 2014 and still retained the highest market share for tablet brands, its iPad shares in the tablet market lagged, according to NPD. Apple's market share dropped from 57.9 percent in 2013 to 50.3 percent in 2014.

This occurred despite the release of the iPad Air 2 in December 2014, a new 9.7-inch flagship tablet powered by iOS 8 featuring Apple Pay and Touch ID, and the Apple iPad Mini 3 in October.

Apple's 7.9-inch iPad mini gray tablet was the most popular tablet model in NPD's top best-selling tablet model list for 2014, with the iPad mini's white version following behind in second place and the 9.7-inch iPad Air gray touch screen in third place.