Documents filed by Apple and Samsung in a California federal court last week reveal that Apple sold 5.7 million iPads in the second quarter of 2012 in the United States while Samsung says it sold only 37,000 Galaxy Tabs.

The documents were mandated by the court as part of the companies? ongoing patent battles, providing a deeper look at U.S. sales trends for the past couple of years. The numbers suggest that part of Apple?s success with the iPad can be attributed to the strong international business it has been able to build with this product.

?The thing that impressed me when looking at the iPad number is how effective they?ve been at expanding globally,? said Rhoda Alexander, senior manager of tablet and monitor research at IHS/iSuppli, Santa Clara, CA. ?Many of the other tablet vendors are looked into the regions where they are based.

?If anything they have had a faster international ramp up with this product than with preceding products,? she said. ?The groundwork was laid with earlier products and they have been able to build on that with the iPad.

?This is one of the things that make them such a formidable threat.?

Galaxy Tab sales dwindle
The documents show that Samsung sold 983,000 Galaxy Tabs in the U.S. last year but that the numbers have been dwindling this year. In the first quarter of 2012, Samsung sold 156,000 Galaxy Tabs but only 37,000 in the second quarter, down significantly from the 266,000 it sold in the second quarter of last year.

In contrast, IDC reported recently that Samsung sold 2.4 million tablets worldwide in the second quarter. This suggests that overseas sales are very strong for Samsung.

Apple's documents show that it sold 16 million tablets in the U.S. last year. In the first quarter of this year, it sold 4.5 million and in the second quarter, 5.7 million. Sales in the second quarter of 2012 were up from 4.3 million units during the same period in 2011.

According to IDC, Apple delivered 17 million iPads worldwide in the second quarter, up from 11.8 million units in the first quarter of 2012 and ahead of 15.4 million for all of 2011.

Apple regains market share
The numbers also reinforce the idea that while the iPad may have lost some market share last year as new entries came on the scene, this year it is regaining some of that share based on the strength of its offering.

The company is poised to gain even more market share if it launches an iPad mini later this year, as is expected.

?What we saw in the second quarter of 2012 is that Apple did a huge market share retake,? Ms. Alexander said. 

?I would be very surprised if they didn?t launch a mini in 2012,? she said. ?If you look at that and the success they have had with the lower-priced iPad 2, they are very well positioned to do a significant share regain in 2012.

?They are not going to get back to 2010 numbers but are going to look much stronger compared to 2011, which is impressive in that we are now two-plus years away from when they first launched the iPad.?

In terms of Android tablets, Samsung is the company that has made the biggest impact. However, the court documents released last week suggest it may not have had as big an impact as previously thought.

?The company that has had the biggest numbers has been Samsung,? Ms. Alexander said. ?But they have built a lot of that success in other regions than North America, as these numbers show.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York