Apple power: 93% of tablets sold are iPads

The competition may be lining up their troops to march in on the tablet market, but so far Apple is very much the king of this particular technology mountain.

Out of the 4.5 million tablets sold in the third quarter of 2010, 9% of these were iPads, according to numbers from ABI Research.

This was surprising, ABI said, because it tends to be business buying that dominates these sorts of statistics; companies always buy so much office equipment that it outweigh spending from consumers. But as this wasn’t the case, it shows that even in a recession there is plenty of appetite for the right tech-bling.

Apple had hardly any competition on the tablet market last year though, meaning things may be different this year. Competition now include RIM’s Playbook and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, with Android set to catch up quickly.

Then again, rumour has it Apple launch the iPad 2 already next month, so the company may yet maintain its tablet royalty status for a while still.