Android’s Dominance Moves to the Tablet Market

Android has continued its dominance of the mobile market, by becoming the most popular operating system for tablets as well as mobile phones. Android tablet sales grew by a staggering 173% in 2013 and now accounts for 62% of all tablets sold worldwide. Tablet sales more generally also boomed in 2013, with global sales increasing by 68% compared to 2012.

In 2013, 195 million tablets were sold worldwide, with Apple’s iPad accounting for 36% of all sales, which is a drop of 52% from 2012, compared to Android’s 62% market share. In 2012, 45% of all tablets sold worldwide were Android operated.

It could be said that 2013 was the year when tablets became mainstream among mobile users. Android, unlike Apple, offers a vast choice of tablet models varying in price, which could account for the substantial increase in the number of Android tablets which were sold.

Despite the fall in Apple’s share of the operating system market for tablets, it still has the largest market share in terms of the number of tablets sold, at around 36% of the market. The second largest tablet manufacturer is Samsung with 19%, and the Taiwanese company Asus coming in third with 5.6% of the tablet market. Lenovo has the largest growth of 198% compared to its 2012 figures.

The challenge going forward for Apple, which is the same as within the smartphone market, is being able to compete with low cost models, consumers are becoming less concerned with brands as the market grows and more concerned with cost. This is evident by the fact that the largest growth in the tablet sales came from the emerging markets in Asia and South America, which saw the tablet market increase by 145% in 2013. This is compared with a modest growth figure of around 31%, in Western Europe and North America.

The tablet market, similarly to the smartphone market, has become a race to the bottom and therefore it is not surprising that Android, has very quickly taken the lead in the race to dominate the tablet market.

The battle between the giants of the smartphone market has now moved into the realms of the tablet market. This is another clear sign that the mobile market is heating up and is, as expected, to grow by 1000% between now and 2015, with no signs of slowing down.