Seoul, Sep 5 (IANS): Samsung Electronics was the top vendor in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) tablet market in the second quarter of the year, as its tablet shipments increased nearly 70 per cent from a year ago.

According to industry researcher International Data Corp. (IDC), Samsung shipped 3.37 million tablets in the EMEA market in the April-June period to take a 28.3 per cent market share, up 7.6 per cent points from a year earlier, reports Yonhap news agency.

"Samsung retained the lead in EMEA, with a solid performance across the whole region, particularly through large deployments in some developing economies," IDC said.

Apple Inc. fell to second place, as its market share dropped to 21.5 per cent, down from 25 per cent a year ago, after it shipped 2.56 million iPads.

China's Huawei Technologies Co. came in third with a market share of 15 per cent, followed by Lenovo Group Ltd. with 12.1 per cent and Amazon.com Inc. with 3.8 per cent, IDC data showed.

The EMEA tablet market in the second quarter grew 23.8 per cent on-year, with total shipments reaching 11.9 million units, according to IDC, posting its largest growth since 2013.

"The spike in consumer demand for tablets was driven by the lack of notebooks in the market," said Stefania Lorenz at IDC. "In fact, tablets were not expected to be the first choice for home-schooling or home-working, but younger students and children were equipped with tablets instead of notebooks."

IDC said the EMEA tablet market is expected to increase 10.9 per cent on-year in the third quarter of 2020 and close the year with 3.7 per cent on-year growth.