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[Kinitari]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/business-16736609?SThisFB

Android's share of tablet market jumps
26 January 12 07:35 ET

The Android operating system's share of the global tablet computer market has risen sharply at the expense of Apple's iOS, research suggests.
Android accounted for 39% of the market in the final three months of last year, up from 29% a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said. Apple's share fell to 58% from 68%.
Microsoft's share stood at 1.5%.
Shipments of tablets reached 26.8 million in the quarter, up from 10.7 million a year ago.
"Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong," said Strategy Analytics' Peter King.
Apple shipped 15.4 million iPads between October and December. That compares with shipments of 10.5 million tablets using Android.
For 2011 as a whole, shipments hit 66.9 million, up from 18.6 million in 2010.
Android is used by a number of tablet manufacturers, including Amazon and Samsung.
It is also one of the most-used operating systems in the global smartphone market, although the latest figures suggest Apple has overtaken Android in the US.
According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Apple took 44.9% of market share in the US in the 12 weeks to 25 December, compared with 44.8% for Android.
Last month, the 10 billionth app was downloaded from the Android Market, and some analysts expect the operating system to overtake Apple in terms of app downloads in the coming months.

I'm an admitted android fanboy, but this news specifically gives me happy feelings because it signals an opportunity for more focus on the Android platform. I'd really like to see how this changes with the release of high quality 200 dollar tablets and good quality 100 dollar tablets this year (and with this iPad3 as well, that'll shake things up).

Also, specifically, tablet sales are skyrocketing. That's a good sign for developers too - it's another medium to sell stuff in.

fake edit: Keep in mind, they include the kindle fire as Android.

 

[Pein]

Shipped numbers are kinda worthless.

 

[Casp0r]

Android could outsell the iPad 10 to 1 ... people wouldn't care.

They just want that fruit on it.

 

[santouras]

50 different models share 39% while 2 models share 58%. Pretty sure apple isn't losing any sleep over this right now.

Android needs some leadership with it's tablets like the nexus line gave to it's phones.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Apple's marketshare potential in most markets is always going to be limited by the sheer amount of options that the Android platform offers in specs and price. There will always be a bottom basement and mid-tier market that cannot be served by Apple's premium priced products. That MS has allowed Google to be their PC OS equivalent in the smartphone and tablet space has to be pretty alarming over at Redmond.

 

[Yaboosh]

Android could outsell the iPad 10 to 1 ... people wouldn't care.

They just want that fruit on it.

This post makes no sense.

 

[andycapps]

This is only for the last quarter. Android tablets as a whole have a lot of ground to be made up. It'll still happen eventually, but not for some time.

 

[Davidion]

50 different models share 39% while 2 models share 58%. Pretty sure apple isn't losing any sleep over this right now.

Android needs some leadership with it's tablets like the nexus line gave to it's phones.

Actually, I'd argue that it was mostly the Droid line, then the EVO that really launched the platform into mainstream popularity, at least here in the US. Something something unified marketing direction.

The nexus may have helped unify standards among manufacturers but in terms of actual consumer recognition I don't think it's impacted much *directly*.

 

[Talon]

Shipped numbers are kinda worthless.

This can't be said enough.

Shipment /= Sales. Apple quotes sales.

 

[Divvy]

The takeaway from this is that Android tablets are doing better, not that iPad sales are doing worse. Stop making that narrative (not directed to you OP) defense forces.

 

[krypt0nian]

This is shipped number for only the last quarter. Total marketshare is something else completely. Then factor in the relative lack of dev support and app sales on the phone side of things where android actually has a higher marketshare and you'll see it's meaningless.

It's a hugely uphill battle.

 

[Kinitari]

This can't be said enough.

Shipment /= Sales. Apple quotes sales.

They're not even sort of worthless. The growth is definitely apparent, that's useful enough. Whether or not they compared the shipment numbers of Android to the sales numbers of iOS - I can't be sure, but that's something to consider at least.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Frankly, I think the prime territory for Android tablets is to explore alternate form factors (7" for example) and lower cost models ($199-249). There's no coincidence that the Kindle Fire is the first buzzed about Android tablet despite the mixed reviews.

They're not even sort of worthless. The growth is definitely apparent, that's useful enough. Whether or not they compared the shipment numbers of Android to the sales numbers of iOS - I can't be sure, but that's something to consider at least.

The reason why people are specifically gunshy to trust shipment numbers are because both the HP Touchpad and Blackberry Playbook suffered MASSIVE overshipment, poor sales, liquidation, and massive writedowns. Their initial shipments suggested they were competitors. They were not.

 

[Talon]

They're not even sort of worthless. The growth is definitely apparent, that's useful enough. Whether or not they compared the shipment numbers of Android to the sales numbers of iOS - I can't be sure, but that's something to consider at least.

Windows 8 will be the big bellweather.

Working as a vendor with larger organizations, it can't be stated enough how much sway Microsoft holds with the enterprise market. We have worked with organizations where iPads have been handed out for executive teams, but their IT departments are loath to support Android tablets. I doubt that trepidation will be there with a full Windows option.

 

[giga]

Do we have any solid sales (not shipment) figures from any non-iPad tablet makers? Here's mobile os usage market share up to December 2011.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=1

 

[andycapps]

Frankly, I think the prime territory for Android tablets is to explore alternate form factors (7" for example) and lower cost models ($199-249). There's no coincidence that the Kindle Fire is the first buzzed about Android tablet despite the mixed reviews.

Agreed, that Asus Tegra 3 tablet that's 7" and has ICS for $249 is an unbelievable value. That's the future market for Android tablets. 10" tablets are still very viable, but when you crack that sub-$250 price point, the market will really explode. Still tons of room for growth in it.

 

[Kinitari]

This is shipped number for only the last quarter. Total marketshare is something else completely. Then factor in the relative lack of dev support and app sales on the phone side of things where android actually has a higher marketshare and you'll see it's meaningless.

I should have specified in the OP somewhere that it was for last quarter, I have no idea why I didn't - but last quarter is still pretty important, as it was the holiday quarter.

And in regards to Android sales - I wonder if there has been any improvement in the last 2 quarters or so? I haven't seen any numbers since around then.

Can anyone shed some light on that? I have no idea where to look

Frankly, I think the prime territory for Android tablets is to explore alternate form factors (7" for example) and lower cost models ($199-249). There's no coincidence that the Kindle Fire is the first buzzed about Android tablet despite the mixed reviews.

I think that would be a great place for them to garner some mainstream attention, but I think there needs to be more variety of tablet types as well. The slate form factor works, but something like a wacom tablet would be a huge seller, I think. Priced correctly, at least.

The reason why people are specifically gunshy to trust shipment numbers are because both the HP Touchpad and Blackberry Playbook suffered MASSIVE overshipment, poor sales, liquidation, and massive writedowns. Their initial shipments suggested they were competitors. They were not.

I can appreciate that, but I don't think any android tablets have had anything near the same situation as those two tablets apply to them this year. Not saying shipment numbers are 100%, but they do give you a good indication of at least the growth of the market.

 

[LuchaShaq]

Still think the web browsing on my asus transformer is substantially better than on the ipad 2 that my gf has /shrug. Considering that + netflix is 95% of my tablet time...

 

[TheMan]

Android could outsell the iPad 10 to 1 ... people wouldn't care.

They just want that fruit on it.

so in your scenario, people would purchase android tablets but they would really want apple tablets?

 

[kehs]

Do we have any solid sales (not shipment) figures from any non-iPad tablet makers? Here's mobile os usage market share up to December 2011.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=1

You can sorta pull numbers for Android Tablets with Market, but looking at the screen support.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

About 6.2 percent of those are tablets (Large/Xlarge) screens. They recently said they surpassed 250 million android device activations. Take out 50 million(number pulled from thin air) for devices that aren't active on the market anymore.

You get about 12 million Large/Xlarge devices. (pre-christmas)

 

[poppabk]

Do we have any solid sales (not shipment) figures from any non-iPad tablet makers? Here's mobile os usage market share up to December 2011.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=1

Java ME? Is this on non smart phones? And why is the android segmented out but IOS isn't?

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Android could outsell the iPad 10 to 1 ... people wouldn't care.

They just want that fruit on it.

That's such utter bullshit. People want good devices. The insinuation that people only buy apple products for the brand and not functionality is intellectually disingenuous. Just as dishonest as saying people only buy Android devices because they're Apple haters. That's just silly talk.

I have an iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and I'm sure I'll get an iPhone 5. But I have a Windows 7 desktop and laptop. And an Android Tablet (Kindle Fire).

All devices have their good points and bad points. I personally love the Fire.

 

[rozay]

Honeycomb tablets were complete pieces of shit in comparison to the iPad 2, so it's not surprising that consumers and developers didn't take well to it. I believe that with 4.0 out now this will begin to change, since the look isn't anywhere near as geeky, there are finally UX guidelines and the performance won't be limited by a half-baked OS and the more terribly baked tegra 2 chipset.

I probably sound like a hater, but I really disliked 3.0 on the hardware that shipped last year and wouldn't hesitate to recommend an iPad 2 over any of them even though I use an android phone daily.

 

[giga]

You can sorta pull numbers for Android Tablets with Market, but looking at the screen support.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

About 6.2 percent of those are tablets (Large/Xlarge) screens. They recently said they surpassed 250 million android device activations. Take out 50 million(number pulled from thin air) for devices that aren't active on the market anymore.

You get about 12 million Large/Xlarge devices. (pre-christmas)

The problem with this measurement is that the large size encompasses devices between 4 and 7".

How about the platform versions? 3.3% of them are running honeycomb and I'd guess the majority of ICS users are on the tuna.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

 

[Norml]

Frankly, I think the prime territory for Android tablets is to explore alternate form factors (7" for example) and lower cost models ($199-249). There's no coincidence that the Kindle Fire is the first buzzed about Android tablet despite the mixed reviews.

I want that Asus 7'' quad core shown at CES for $249.

 

[Ceebs]

I grabbed the Acer 10" Adroid tablet for like 200 last year. I have and will always be a desktop guy (I hate using a laptop) and it does what I want it to. (web & media stuff on the go)

That said Honeycomb was total shit. I flashed ICS on it last week and it's like night and day.

 

[Major Williams]

Yes, those numbers are significant, until you do this.

Number of Manufacturers per platform:

iPad: 1
Android: 10-15 (maybe more).

 

[RubxQub]

I refuse to believe that there is 1 Android tablet owned for every 3 iPads owned. It just doesn't at all jive with anything I've seen, read, heard, observed...anything.

Sales info is all I care about, and we at least know that on Apple's end.

We have no idea if these things are actually selling. The Kindle Fire is pretty much the only thing I'd expect to have any kind of reasonable market share, and I'd be shocked if it was greater than 15%.

 

[erpg]

Nice to at the very least see shipped numbers instead of Google's boastful activations. I activated my HP Touchpad 4 times last night.

And considering its a different ecosystem, I don't know if I'd count the Nook or Kindle as Android.

 

[kehs]

The problem with this measurement is that the large size encompasses devices between 4 and 7".

How about the platform versions? 3.3% of them are running honeycomb and I'd guess the majority of ICS users are on the tuna.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

Yeah, that over lap skews it a bit, but then again, 5 inchers like the Note can be considered a tablet.

Most phones present themselves to the market as "normal" because presenting as "large" would kill any chances of it seeing apps made for phones. That was the problem with the OG 7" Tab, and app support.

I would use the percentages, but the dates are off, and there are gingerbread tablets out there, like two users though.

 

[Raistlin]

I suspect a large part of the growth is from Kindle Fire and Nook Color/Tablet

 

[giga]

Yeah, that over lap skews it a bit, but then again, 5 inchers like the Note can be considered a tablet.

I would use the percentages, but the dates are off, and there are gingerbread tablets out there, like two users though.

AND PADFONE??

 

[kehs]

AND PADFONE??

Padfone is going to implode the Market's backend logic.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I'm finally starting to see Android tablets around when I go places. I have a Xoom, and while I appreciate and like the ICS upgrade, I'm probably going to be in the market for an upgrade at some point this year.

In my family I have a Xoom, my brother has an iPad, my mom also got a Xoom, and my wife has a Kindle Fire. Everybody is pretty happy with their tablets, but I think that the Kindle Fire will go to my son soon and my wife might inherit my Xoom when I upgrade. My brother is eyeing that Transformer Prime, as am I, but he's afraid of losing all the apps he's purchased on the iPad.

I think 2012 could be a big year for Android tablets, but they need to have an obvious frontrunner model or two that people know to ask for. Right now a salesman just shows you 4-5 options and then says, "I don't know, they're all good I guess. I have an iPad, but these are cool, but I don't know much about them."

 

[andycapps]

I refuse to believe that there is 1 Android tablet owned for every 3 iPads owned. It just doesn't at all jive with anything I've seen, read, heard, observed...anything.

Sales info is all I care about, and we at least know that on Apple's end.

We have no idea if these things are actually selling. The Kindle Fire is pretty much the only thing I'd expect to have any kind of reasonable market share, and I'd be shocked if it was greater than 15%.

This was just for the last quarter of 2011. Kindle Fire is probably the biggest seller due to price and Amazon's marketing muscle. Next biggest is the OG Transformer, then probably the Xoom. Numbers for Transformer Prime wouldn't be included in this, IIRC.

 

[Divvy]

This was just for the last quarter of 2011. Kindle Fire is probably the biggest seller due to price and Amazon's marketing muscle. Next biggest is the OG Transformer, then probably the Xoom. Numbers for Transformer Prime wouldn't be included in this, IIRC.

Sony's S tablet is apparently doing well too despite being pieces of garbage.

 

[sonycowboy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/business-16736609?SThisFB



I'm an admitted android fanboy, but this news specifically gives me happy feelings because it signals an opportunity for more focus on the Android platform. I'd really like to see how this changes with the release of high quality 200 dollar tablets and good quality 100 dollar tablets this year (and with this iPad3 as well, that'll shake things up).

Also, specifically, tablet sales are skyrocketing. That's a good sign for developers too - it's another medium to sell stuff in.

fake edit: Keep in mind, they include the kindle fire as Android.

That report also includes Amazon's statement of overall kindle sales as all being Kindle Fire's...

Here's what Amazon actually said about the Kindle sales of which they are notoriously secretive about...

Throughout December, customers purchased well over 1 million Kindle devices per week.
The new Kindle family held the top three spots on the Amazon.com best seller charts – #1: Kindle Fire, #2: Kindle Touch, #3: Kindle.

Notice that the one million per week is for the entire Kindle family and not just the fire...

That being said, Apple absolutely owns the MP3 market and the number has always been +/- 70% market share. It's very, very hard to own a greater percentage than that, so I'd believe the number was in the 2/3's arena for the last quarter and probably still north of 80% for installed base.

It will continue to drop down as lower cost units continue to make it into the market and Google improves ICS on the tablets and the apps migrate to that platform.

But thinking that Apple doesn't completely own that market space as of today is ridiculous, even including the Kindle Fire.

 

[Vyer]

Kindle Fire release was in this period, if I'm not mistaken. The Fire (and Nook Tablet) probably do more to harm the other Android tablets (in terms of sales) than help them.

 

[Technosteve]

I've never seen android tablets at my hip and trendy cupcake shop!

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

This speaks of the growth in the tablet market. Just having one manufacturer make just one type of tablets is bad for the market. With Android and W8 coming in, and probably selling to customers Apple couldn't quite get, the market will explode.

Apples marketshare was bound to go down. I dont know why people get offended when others make the prediction that soon, Apple will have a <20% marketshare in the tablet market. That's still healthy as hell.

 

[Divvy]

I've never seen android tablets at my hip and trendy cupcake shop!

Cupcakes are old hat, mang. It's all about macaroons and cakes on lollipop sticks. Get with the times!

 

[RubxQub]

This was just for the last quarter of 2011. Kindle Fire is probably the biggest seller due to price and Amazon's marketing muscle. Next biggest is the OG Transformer, then probably the Xoom. Numbers for Transformer Prime wouldn't be included in this, IIRC.

I wouldn't even believe that during the holiday season there was only 3 iPads sold for every 1 Android tablet. Without sales data I'll continue believing Android basically doesn't exist on tablets in any measurable number until shown otherwise.

Not trying to be an ass about it or anything, I just don't think I've ever seen a convincing report that's shown how Android is at all penetrating the tablet market in any number worth mentioning.

Here's a chart showing web impressions of other tablets...per 100 iPad impressions:

So for every 100 iPads that were active, there were less than 3 Kindle Fires...and that is leading the pack following by the damn Playbook of all things. And this data was pulled less than a month ago.

This data actually means something to me versus whatever crap is in the OP, no offense to the OP.

Edit: This is US + Canada data only specifically I'm referencing here, although I have no reason to believe the trend is dramatically different overseas. If anything I'd expect Europe to be slightly higher percentage wise, but probably still not cracking anything over 25%.

 

[Slayven]

Choice is good.

 

[andycapps]

Kindle Fire release was in this period, if I'm not mistaken. The Fire (and Nook Tablet) probably do more to harm the other Android tablets (in terms of sales) than help them.

It's true, the Fire is a decent tablet for the money but it's on a heavily modified version of 2.3 Gingerbread and doesn't have access to the real Android Market, just Amazon's. But it doesn't help in terms of app development if the highest selling tablets on the market aren't even running Honeycomb, much less ICS.

 

[drspeedy]

As a current owner of one each of iOS, Android and Blackberry QNX tablets, Android is the worst by far. So much lost between releases, manufacturer support and hardware&#8230; its an 'also ran', except the user base is so high we have to agree to accept the platform

I pray 4.0 is stable and less bastardized to fit every flimsy hardware. If that's the case, I welcome Android out of the phone OS dungeons.

But it doesn't help in terms of app development if the highest selling tablets on the market aren't even running Honeycomb, much less ICS.

This

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Why are people feeling threatened by another viable choice in the market? I don't get this. Without a strong competitor the iPad to iPad 2 upgrade was pretty negligible. Yes, it's more powerful, but the feature set didn't improve. Having Android, and hopefully Windows 8 tablets as strong competitors, Apple will be forced to improve their tablets.

 

[Cheebo]

Shipped is the Android count. Sold is the iPad count. Not really much of a fair comparison. Plus I'd bet good money more than 80% of the android total is from Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire is a decent tablet for media consumption but it has almost no computer replacing content on it like iPad. It is not really a good fit for the post-PC era Apple is bringing about. iPad is perfectly capable of a lot of contention creation abilities and document creation & management. Until a lot of Android tablets take off (and no Transformer Prime and the like have not taken off. They appeal to a very very niche market.) that function as Tablet PC's not just media playing tablet devices like the Fire & Nook Tablet then I can't see Android being much of a viable tablet platform in the fast coming post-PC era.

Android has so far been a flop in the actual Tablet PC side of the tablet market. Windows 8 on the otherhand? That could be the first real test of the high-end PC-replacement side of the Tablet market that Apple owns.

 

[giga]

Why are people feeling threatened by another viable choice in the market? I don't get this. Without a strong competitor the iPad to iPad 2 upgrade was pretty negligible. Yes, it's more powerful, but the feature set didn't improve. Having Android, and hopefully Windows 8 tablets as strong competitors, Apple will be forced to improve their tablets.

You're talking about software features right? The iPad 1 shipped with iOS 3…

 

[kehs]

I wouldn't even believe that during the holiday season there was only 3 iPads sold for every 1 Android tablet. Without sales data I'll continue believing Android basically doesn't exist on tablets in any measurable number until shown otherwise.

Not trying to be an ass about it or anything, I just don't think I've ever seen a convincing report that's shown how Android is at all penetrating the tablet market in any number worth mentioning.

Here's a chart showing web impressions of other tablets...per 100 iPad impressions:

So for every 100 iPads that were active, there were less than 3 Kindle Fires...and that is leading the pack following by the damn Playbook of all things. And this data was pulled less than a month ago.

This data actually means something to me versus whatever crap is in the OP, no offense to the OP.

Edit: This is US + Canada data only specifically I'm referencing here, although I have no reason to believe the trend is dramatically different overseas. If anything I'd expect Europe to be slightly higher percentage wise, but probably still not cracking anything over 25%.

That chart your posted is an average of 10 days.

 

[RubxQub]

Why are people feeling threatened by another viable choice in the market? I don't get this. Without a strong competitor the iPad to iPad 2 upgrade was pretty negligible. Yes, it's more powerful, but the feature set didn't improve. Having Android, and hopefully Windows 8 tablets as strong competitors, Apple will be forced to improve their tablets.

Who's threatened? I'm just saying that the claim of 39% marketshare is laughable.

Windows 8 looks like it's going to be an awesome tablet OS. Like a truly awesome tablet OS. Will I personally be swayed by it? Probably not...but just like WebOS before it and Windows Phone now, I'll appreciate what they bring to the table in their own unique way.

Android tablets right now get next to no advertising and have next to no identity.

The Transformer Prime looks really awesome but if it wasn't for GAF I wouldn't even know the thing existed!

That chart your posted is an average of 10 days.

What does that have to do with anything? Is your argument that this specific 10 day period had a lob-sided fury of iPad activity for some reason that the data should be tossed or something? I admit the window could be bigger, but does the window of time really matter as long as it's not like an hour or a day? It's more than a week. A month would be better. A year would be even better...but 10 days isn't insignificant or something.

I'm just pointing out that at least in this chart we're looking at real data of consumer owned tablets...not shipped numbers.