Google's Android takes tablet market share crown from Apple's iPad
Google’s Android OS has claimed the biggest slice of the tablet market share for the first quarter of 2013.
Analysts over at IDC have seen Android tablet sales account for 56.5% of all tablets sold in the first three months of the year, while Apple’s iOS slates sat in second with 39.6% share.
However, with Apple the sole manufacturer of iOS tablets compared to the multitude of Android tablet manufacturers, Apple stayed the single biggest tablet selling company, shipping 19.5 million devices and even out doing IDC’s own optimistic predictions.
Samsung hit second place on the manufacturers list, shipping 8.8 million units, with Microsoft hitting the top five for the first time, managing to shift 900,000 Windows-based Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets.
“Sustained demand for the iPad mini and increasingly strong commercial shipments led to a better-than-expected first quarter for Apple,” said Tom Mainelli, research director of tablets at IDC.
“In addition, by moving the iPad launch to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple seems to have avoided the typical first-quarter slowdown that traditionally occurred when consumers held off buying in January and February in anticipation of a new product launch in March.”
Total tablets sales over the quarter hit 49.2 million, a 142% year-on-year increase that overshadows sales of even the first 6 months of last year.
