China's best-selling tablet computer iPad saw its shipments to the country between April and June drastically halved from the previous quarter as Apple Inc's competitors, both international and Chinese, build up market share.

Shipments of the tablet in China were down from about 3.04 million in the first quarter of the year to 1.48 million units in the second quarter, with its market share in the country shrinking from 49 percent to 28 percent during the same period, according to statistics from International Data Corp, a global market intelligence firm.

Apple's product is still No 1 in terms of market share in China's tablet computer sector but rapidly increasing sales numbers from rivals have led to a more challenging market for it.

"The market share of Android-based tablets, such as Samsung, is growing rapidly because there is a much bigger user base that is already familiar with the system because of the smartphones they use," said Dickie Chang, a Hong Kong-based analyst with researcher IDC, told China Daily on Wednesday.

Chang said Samsung Group took second place in China's tablet computer market in the second quarter with its share surging to 11 percent from 6 percent a quarter earlier. China's Lenovo Group Ltd was third with shipments of its tablet computers more than doubling from the quarter earlier, taking 8 percent of market share in the same period.