Samsung, Apple Get Even More Dominant

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Any way you slice it, Samsung and Apple (AAPL) keep taking bigger pieces of the personal-electronics pie. That's bad news for companies like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Sony (SNE).

Rivals Samsung and Apple have been pulling away from the pack, while Lenovo has made a strong showing, landing in third place. That's according to a third-quarter report from IDC, which combines personal computers, smartphones and tablets into one category called the "connected device" worldwide market.

When you add together its products, Samsung has virtually doubled shipments from a year earlier -- from 33.5 million units to 66.1 million. Market share widened from 14% to 21.8%.

Apple has gone from 33.1 million units last year to 45.8 million, increasing market share from 13.9% to 15.1%.

Lenovo is in third place, with sales jumping from 13.2 million units to 21.1, and market share rising from 5.5% to 7%.

HP is the big loser in the survey. With no smartphones/mobile devices to speak of since the demise of what used to be Palm's product division, HP's numbers are down more than 20%, from 17.6 million units to 14 million. Market share dropped to 4.6% from last year's 7.4%.

Rounding out the top five is Sony. While total shipments increased from 8.7 million units to 11 million, its share of the pie decreased slightly from 3.7% to 3.6%.

IDC expects the worldwide smart connected device market to continue to surge well past this year's holiday season and predicts shipments to surpass 2.1 billion units in 2016.

-- Written by Gary Krakow in New York.

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Gary Krakow is TheStreet's senior technology correspondent.