Specifically, total tablet shipments for the quarter increased by a whopping 75 percent to 24 million units, representing 22 percent of all PCs.

A growth in tablet sales appears to have made up for disappointing Ultrabook numbers, the firm said.

Apple’s iPad had the biggest impact on market growth for the quarter; however, Samsung and ASUS also saw increased sales figures.

Tablets are biting into PCs shipments, and shipments of Windows PCs dropped to a new low of 73 percent of all devices accounted for in the survey, Canalys said.

Tom Evans, Canalys Research Analyst says: "The Computer industry is performing well and 2012 is shaping up to be a record year.

Apple retook the overall lead (from Hewlett-Packard) with an estimated 19 percent share of global Computer shipments, helped by strong iPad sales:.

Ultrabooks have not hit low price points and have yet to excite large numbers of buyers, Canalys said in a statement.

Samsung doubled the number of Galaxy Tab shipments compared to a year ago, and Acer made the biggest gains this quarter, making it the third largest tablet vendor worldwide.

Samsung more than doubled its Galaxy Tab shipment figures from the same quarter last year.

The top Android tablet vendor was Samsung, which doubled its shipments from the prior year.

While Apple and Samsung continue to compete aggressively, the largest gains of the second quarter go to Taiwanese computer maker ASUS, following the release of its Transformer Pad 300.

Joining forces with Google to produce the sub-$200 Google Nexus 7 will further strengthen the role of Asus in this market,” Canalys research analyst Pin Chen Tang said. “Amazon must now launch a more powerful replacement for the Kindle Fire, and expand internationally, or see its pad business fail.

Analysts have said Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet with the Android 4.1 OS will continue to hurt Kindle Fire shipments, and Amazon is rumored to be launching successors to the tablet in different screen sizes.

Canalys estimated Kindle Fire shipments in the second quarter to be below 500,000 units, a significant drop on previous quarters.

Windows Computer shipments continue to slump ahead of Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch, due this October.

According to new figures from Canalys, Apple now holds a 19 percent share of worldwide Computer shipments, having shipped more than 21 million PCs in Q2 2012.

Windows PCs, meanwhile, dropped to 73 percent of market share (an all time low), while Intel processors dropped their market share to below 70 percent for the first time.

Hewlett Packard came in second in this survey with 12 percent market share.

Lenovo continued to gain share, thanks to a strong home market, a focus on emerging markets and increased attention to the consumer category overall.

But interestingly, Canalys suggested that “improved brand awareness through its Olympics sponsorship should translate into increased sales in the second half of the year.”.

Hewlett Packard, which sells only PCs, was second, shipping 13.55 million units, an 11.3 percent drop and a 12.5 percent market share.

The decision to merge its Computer and printing divisions are believed to have affected its first half, but a Canalys survey among its partners revealed that the majority of Hewlett-Packard’s partners believe this decision will prove beneficial for the company in the long haul.

The wildcard of the Computer industry’s second quarter was Microsoft’s decision to release its own Surface tablets.

And he asserted that tablets are PCs, not only to buyers but also to hardware makers.

The company shipped 21.6 million tablets and Macs combined, holding a 19.4 percent market share, and growing by 59.6 percent compared to the second quarter in the previous year.

The analyst believe it must pump cash into its OEM partners, lower licensing fees, subsidizing touchscreen devices and begin repairing its relationship with Computer vendors upset at the firms decision to go it alone with its own tablets.

Hewlett-Packard has been one of the loyal Windows Computer vendors; if Surface does well and gives Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) its own direct market share, where will that leave companies like Hewlett Packard.

Windows 8 is set to launch during the fourth quarter on October 26th, although it has already been released to manufacturing (RTM) and to developer partners.

Of the 108.7 million PCs sold in the second quarter, 73% were powered by Windows, said Evans, a record low for the Microsoft operating system.

Canalys does not expect the launch of Windows 8 to arrest Microsoft’s market share decline until Q3 2013 at the earliest, despite a launch budget that will guarantee attention during Q4.

Brad Thomson is a business journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Brad has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Brad spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.