"Not only is the US market one of the largest for tablets, but third quarter results also indicate that this is where the growth is," said Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC Research Director for Tablets.

"We saw Verizon continuing to sell connected tablets at a fast pace, a strategy that we believe other carriers will replicate in following quarters. We also saw RCA enter the top 5, impacting the entire US market and worldwide ranking with one large deal linked to back-to-school and channel fill ahead of Black Friday. Those two elements resulted in the US tablet market growing at 18.5% year-over-year compared to the worldwide market growing at 11.5% annually."

Despite a continued shipment decline for its iPad product line, Apple maintained its lead in the worldwide tablet market, shipping 12.3 million units in the third quarter. Samsung held its number two position on the market with 9.9 million units shipped, capturing an 18.3% market share in the third quarter. Asus regained its number three position with 3.5 million units and 6.5% share of the market.

Lenovo fell back to the number 4 position with 3 million units. It is worth noting that Asus and Lenovo traded the positions they held in 2Q14. The top 5 was rounded out by RCA, which achieved its position by shipping 2.6 million units primarily in one country, the US. Market share for the vendors outside the top 5 continued to outgrow the market, representing 41.8% of total tablet shipments in 3Q14.

"Although the low-cost vendors are moving a lot of volume, the top vendors, like Apple, continue to rake in the dollars," said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.

"A sub-$100 tablet simply isn't sustainable—Apple knows this—and it's likely the reason they aren't concerned with market share erosion."