Google’s Android powered smartphones may have seen tremendous growth, but its tablet devices are steadily losing market shares to opponents such as the BlackBerry PlayBook and the officially discontinued HP TouchPad from Hewlett-Packard, new data published suggest.

The data released by International Data Corporation (IDC), also claimed that Apple’s latest venture into the tablet market iPad 2 continues to dominate the scene with over 9.3 million units being shipped during the second quarter of the running fiscal. The iPhone maker now enjoys near about 68.3 percent share in the global tablet market, compared to 65.7 percent in the first quarter.

Research In Motion on the other hand, managed to pocket almost 4.9 percent share of the global tablet market with its newly launched PlayBook, and this despite all the heavy criticism the device drew from various circles for lacking some key software and other features.

In comparison to an encouraging performance by both the arch rivals RIM and Apple, Google could not sustain the growth it was witnessing and achieving previously. Android’s market share in the quarter two dropped to 26.8 percent in comparison to the 34 percent it was enjoying the previous quarter.