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Strong holiday sales leave Android with 39 percent share of tablet market

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In the fourth quarter of 2011 tablet shipments worldwide peaked at 26.8 million, a 150 percent increase from just one year prior. Perhaps no single entity was the greater beneficiary of the continued shift towards tablet computing than was Google. Android-based slates jumped from a 29 percent share of the market in 2010 to a 39.1 percent share for Q4 2012, accounting for 10.5 million of all tablets sold. The numbers represent the great diversity of tablet computers now available, but there is still only one king in this castle. While the iPad saw a decline of roughly 10 percent, sales of the Apple device still took an overwhelming majority of the market with 57.6 percent. Total sales for the iPad in Q4 amounted to 15.4 million.

A large boost came from strong holiday sales of the Amazon Kindle Fire, the $200 media machine. If buzz surrounding the device has Apple sweating, they aren’t showing their hand. They have taken the stance that the iPad appeals to folks looking for a more powerful tablet and willing to spend the extra money to get it.

While increased awareness and marketing as well as quality contributed to Android’s growth, the number of new Android tablets introduced last year made an increase in market share for Google’s OS inevitable. We’ve seen the trend before with Android smartphones as they played catch up with the iPhone and eventually surpassed the device to hold the worldwide market. Will we see the same for tablets? If Android can’t overtake the iPad, there should at least come a time when it can match Apple’s sales blow-for-blow.

[via ComputerWorld]

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37 Comments

  1. of course apple has shown their hand at sweating. they’ve been suing android nonstop since the kindle fire was even announced.

  2. Apple has no confidence in their products… They sue everyone they can to try to leverage the market. It’s quite sad really…

  3. Apple is scrabbling for a low cost tablet solution (hence the rumors of a $299 iPad release). $500 is too much for a tablet for people who just want to consume media.

  4. And this probably doesn’t include the 100K + HP ToucPads bought for the purpose of running Android on them…lol  That would probably knock it over 41%.. I know more where sold by HP but 100K should be at least half bought for Android…

  5. Has anyone played with an HP tablet with Android on it.

    1. I have a Touchpad with CM9 alpha 0.5, its amazing! Its fast as hell and was worth every penny of the $99 I spent on it! I can’t believe how well CM9 works on it, almost as if it was meant to run it from the beginning.

      1. Did you put it together yourself or send it out, because I heard there was places that would put Android on it for you.

        1. From what I’ve seen, it’s not brain surgery to put it on this device. I wouldn’t pay someone else to do it if you have a modicum of technical savvy…

          1. it’s extremely easy to install CM9 (ICS) on a touchpad. You download a few files and then connect your TP to your computer and it’ll do the installation pretty much for you. Even without hardware acceleration, I have mine overclocked to 1.7Ghz and it is hands down faster than my buddy’s Galaxy Nexus. I still can’t believe I paid $150 for a tablet which should’ve cost twice as much. Couldn’t be any happier.

      2. And thank you for your feedback.

    2. I have 3 friends with Touchpads with Cyanogen on them. They like them quite a bit. 

      1. I know my phones and tablets well, just not HP or webOS. I just was reading an article on people sending them out and buying them with the OS preinstalled.

      2. How the build quality of the tablet itself? I’m sure you can all figure I’m planning on buying one LOL.

  6. Steve Jobs DID say he was going to use every dollar Apple has to take down Android, and I guess his message is carrying on still. 

  7. I have a touchpad running cm7 and I love it, dying for cm9 to come out!

  8. I have a touchpad running cm7 and I love it, dying for cm9 to come out!

  9. I have a touchpad running cm7 and I love it, dying for cm9 to come out!

  10. If the rumors prove to be true, the iPad will take back Android tablet gains by offering a lower priced iPad 2 along side the iPad 3. If Apple does this, they’ll own the tablet market the same way they own the MP3 player market. To totally kill the competition, they could bring back the iPad 1 and price it at $99.

    1. Sorry, but even if you PAID ME, I still wouldn’t want to use a Crapple iDevice. (Well, everyone has a price: I’d use it (not to the exclusion of Android) for $100/mo, but to the exclusion of android, you’d have to pay me $2000/mo, for up to 2 months of torture at a time).

      1. …and for 2 cents you’d dress up like a French maid and bend over for the Android robot.

        1. Throw in a reacharound and you’ve got a deal!

          1. Hahahaaaa. Touché.

  11. Funny how this story never made it to Phandroid:

    “Apple iPhone market share ‘outpacing Android'”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9038087/Apple-iPhone-market-share-outpacing-Android.html

    3 phones….outpacing over 100….with one less carrier

    Ha ha…

    1. Totally relevant to this story. Will read again.

    2. True. It would be too embarrassing to admit. Offer products people REALLY want and at the right price points and everything changes.

      1. For those too stupid perhaps.

        1. Like those who purchase Android devices? Couldn’t imagine a dumber set of purchasers!

          1. How is purchasing something you like dumb?  Just because you like one product and I don’t doesn’t make either a stupid purchase, if the product fills your needs and you are happy, then it was a smart purchase.  Your argument is pointless and juvenile.  Go back to school and learn how to make a point, because what you’re currently bringing wouldn’t hold water against a 4 year old.

          2. Where’d you come from? I was responding to Scott’s comment above. It’s interesting how you chose to attack my comment, while ignoring His! Shows your bias! Feeling a little sensitive these days, huh? Apple’s schooling the competition with jaw-dropping profits from the iPhone and other iOS devices. The competition can’t continue to compete with Apple taking all the profits and being the only company that’s innovating. This Android/ iOS battle is over and Apple is the clear victor.

    3. That’s for Britain only, not the rest of the world, dumbass.

      1. “Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.”

        That’s a quote from the article….learn to read, dumbass.

    4. Yeah, there’s no actual numbers in those articles. “Growing faster” probably means a sales spike when Apple released their one product for the year. The same thing happened last year–Apple wins in the one quarter they release a new device, and then Android dominates the rest of the year.

      1. Wrong again fandroid! The is the first qtr that Apple has outsold Android since they became number one in marketshare…..this is a quarter that saw the release of several high end Android phones (Razr, Rezound, Galaxy Nexus, etc) and they were still outsold by the iPhone. Now that Apple has broadened the availability of the iPhone (still isn’t offered everywhere Android is) people now have little reason to settle for pretend iPhones when the real thing is sitting next to it. The tide has turned….deal with it

        1. Yeah, nothing you said contradicted what I said. iPhones always outsell Android in the one quarter a year that they release a new product, and Android always outsells iPhones in every other quarter and has higher total sales on the year. There may have been a lot of high-end phones this quarter, but there will be even better Android phones in Winter, Spring, and Summer, with hd screens, quad core processors, 4g speeds, NFC, Android 4.0 etc that the 4S is going to look quite dated next to to all but the apple loyalist.

          1. Maybe you need a class in reading comprehension…..I’ll say it again: Apple has NEVER outsold Android in ANY quarter since they (Android) took over the market share lead until this last qtr. The fact that this past qtr saw the release of several high end Android phones, including their so-called “flagship” Galaxy Nexus and they STILL couldn’t stop the iPhone from taking the market share lead is very revealing…you can talk about all the quad core processors and screens u want….only geeks like yourself care about stuff like that, or perhaps u didn’t notice that a 3G phone is outselling every 4G out there….like I said, that tide has turned….deal with it

  12. @ikaden:disqus ….$9,238 was my buddy’s mom makes paycheck last month. she works on the internet and drives a 2012 Chevrolet TrailBlazer. All she did was get lucky and follow the information you can find here … MakeCash2.comONLY

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