Although tablet shipments grew during the fourth quarter of 2013, Apple Inc. encountered losses in its market share.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, tablet shipments grew worldwide to 76.9 million units during the fourth quarter last year based on preliminary data. In comparison to the third quarter, tablet shipments grew by 62.4 percent and 28.2 percent from the same period in 2012. Despite the growth, tablet shipments are down "dramatically" when comparing year-over-year rates from the same quarter, which represented 87.1 percent. The IDC noted tablet shipments could be entering a "significant slowing" stage.

For the 2013 calendar year, the IDC reported 217.1 million tablet units were shopped globally, which is an increase from 144.2 million units during 2012. As a result, a 50.6 percent growth rate took place.

According to a Nielson Company study, Latinos are twice as likely to upgrade their tablets in the next six months and are the fastest growing demographic adopting smart devices.

"It's becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the U.S. are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past," said IDC Research Director for Tablets Tom Mainelli. "We expect commercial purchases of tablets to continue to accelerate in mature markets, but softness in the consumer segment-brought about by high penetration rates and increased competition for the consumer dollar-point to a more challenging environment for tablets in 2014 and beyond."

Apple led the competition with the most tablet shipments during the fourth quarter with 26 million units, which is an increase from 14.1 million iPads from the third quarter. In comparison to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple shipped 22.9 million units, which accounted for 38.2 percent of the market share. A year later, Apple tablets accounted for 33.8 percent of the market share.

The IDC reported noted, "The numbers bring into focus the challenges [Apple] faces as it attempts to grow its tablet business in markets outside of its traditional mature-market strongholds and in the face of continued success from competitors both large and small."

Samsung commanded second place with 18.8 percent of the tablet market share, which is an increase from the 13 percent during the fourth quarter in 2012. Samsung shipped 14.5 million units, which is also an increase from 7.8 million units during the same period in 2012. As a result Samsung saw a year-over-year growth of 85.9 percent compared to Apple's growth of 13.5 percent.

Amazon encountered a loss in its fourth-quarter figures. Amazon shipped 5.8 million units worldwide, which accounted for 7.6 percent of the tablet market share. The aforementioned Amazon figures are down, however, from the fourth quarter of 2012 when 5.9 million units were shipped and 9.9 percent of the market share was represented. Amazon's year-over-year growth was a decline of 1.7 percentage points.

__

For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO