Despite creating the category in 2010 and amassing a huge lead in market
share over the competition, for the first time ever in 2013 Android
tablet sales globally topped those of the Apple iPad. Not only did
Android take the top spot from the iOS flavored slates, it more than
doubled the sales of iPads. The information was disseminated by Gartner.First, let's look at the figures. According to Gartner, 121 million
Android tablets were sold in 2013, up from the 53 million sold in 2012.
Apple sold 70.4 million iPads last year, up from the 61.4 million sold
in 2012. And Microsoft also turned in a great year as its tablet sales
surged from 1.1 million to over 4 million slates. On a percentage basis,
Android accounted for 61.9% of tablet sales in 2013 with iOS picking up
36% and Microsoft 2.1%.
"In
2013, tablets became a mainstream phenomenon, with a vast choice of
Android-based tablets being within the budget of mainstream consumers
while still offering adequate specifications."-Roberta Cozza, research director, Gartner.
But there are some questions. There is a 4 million unit difference in
the 74 million iPads reported sold last year by Apple and the 70 million
counted by Gartner. In addition, Apple is the only major tablet
manufacturer that reports sales to end users while Samsung reports
tablets shipped. Still, the latter manufacturer had a whopping 336%
increase in tablet shipments last year, although it did ship about half
the number of slates as Apple sold last year.
The low priced niche was a big winner for Android while Asus, Amazon and
Lenovo finished third, fourth and fifth respectively among the top
tablet manufacturers last year. And even adding those missing 4 million
iPads back into Gartner's figures wouldn't have changed the results at
all.
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