Samsung Electronics Co. maintained its status as the world's second-largest tablet vendor last year, a report showed Wednesday, though the South Korean tech giant saw a significant improvement in sales to catch up with industry leader Apple Inc.

Samsung, the world's largest smartphone maker, had a 19.1 percent share in the global tablet market in 2020 after shipping 31.3 million units, up 44.4 percent from a year ago, according to market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC).

Apple again topped the list after shipping 53.2 million iPads, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, for a 32.5 percent share in 2020.

However, Samsung managed to narrow the gap with Apple. In 2019, Samsung's market share was 15 percent, while that of Apple was 34.6 percent.

"(Samsung) is still the largest provider of Android slate tablets with successful products such as the Galaxy Tab A and Galaxy Tab S6 Lite," IDC said. "Meanwhile, the vendor's earnest efforts at making Android more productive and usable in a detachable form factor have helped the brand maintain a premium over other Android competitors."

China's Huawei Technologies Co. retained the third spot, though its market share declined 10.2 percent to 9.8 percent after shipping 16 million tablets in 2020. In the fourth quarter alone, the company suffered a 25.7 percent decline in tablet shipments following US sanctions, IDC said.

Lenovo Group Ltd. came in fourth with a market share of 8.6 percent after shipping 14.1 million tablets, up 66.4 percent from a year earlier. Amazon.com Inc. took the fifth spot with a market share of 8.5 percent with 14 million tablet shipments.

In 2020, IDC said the worldwide tablet market grew 13.6 percent to 164.1 million units as the stay-at-home economy induced by the pandemic pushed up demand for tablets. (Yonhap)