Jong kyun shin samsung tablet

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. has a new goal after overtaking Apple in smartphones: it wants to be world No. 1 in tablet computers too.

A top executive, Shin Jong-kyun, told analysts on Wednesday that Samsung’s tablet business is growing rapidly and the company will become the biggest maker of tablet computers.

He didn’t give a timeframe.

Shin said Samsung’s tablet sales will exceed 40 million units this year, more than double sales in 2012.

“Samsung tablet shipments started to grow remarkably since the second half of last year,” he said.

Research group IDC estimates that Samsung sold 16.6 million tablets in 2012, lagging far behind Apple Inc.

which sold 65.7 million iPads.

But Samsung is on the rise, capturing 20 percent market share in the July-September quarter while Apple, which led the commercialization of tablet computing, fell to 30 percent.

Apple previously had more than half of the global tablet market but its dominan