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Apple is looking for a boost for its iPad business today as people line up at stores to buy the new iPad Air. The launch comes at a highly competitive time for tablets. With the holiday shopping season approaching, new numbers show that it’s still anyone’s market to grab.

ipadairApple’s share of the worldwide tablet market declined to less than 30 percent in the third quarter, down from market share of more than 40 percent a year earlier, according to data released this week by IDC. That was due in part to Apple changing the schedule for iPad releases to later in the year.

Apple shipped 14.1 million units in the third quarter, up slightly from the same quarter a year ago. The company’s market share slipped because the tablet market overall grew at a faster pace — rising 36 percent to 47.6 million units in the third quarter. That was driven in large part by shipments of low-cost Android tablets around the world.

One question going into the holiday season is whether Amazon can break back into the top 5 tablet vendors with its new Kindle Fire HDX.

Meanwhile, Windows tablets “continued to struggle to win over consumers,” IDC reported. Microsoft is looking to the revamped Surface 2 and new Windows 8.1 tablets from vendors including ASUS, Dell and Lenovo to give its platform better success in the market during the holidays.

At some point in the coming years, tablets are expected to overtake PCs in total unit shipped, but for now tablet shipments have settled in at less than 60 percent the size of shipments of traditional notebooks and desktops.

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