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Android surpasses iOS in yet another global tablet market share report

Where is that new iPad Mini? Google and friends are giving Apple a serious run for its money.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Similar to the way it has taken over the global smartphone scene, report after report is demonstrating that Android is doing the same thing for tablets now.

Canalys has just published a new report declaring that Android has overtaken iOS in the global tablet market.

During the second quarter, the report found that Android accounted for 53 percent of the market share -- notably thanks to devices with 9-inch or smaller screens.

Furthermore, Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo and Acer all saw shipment gains by 200 percent each on a year-over-year basis.

By comparison, iOS tablet shipments dropped by 14 percent, with Apple's market share falling to just 43 percent.

And without a new iPad or iPad mini anywhere on the horizon (despite rumors abound about what next generations will look like), the days of iPad dominance are all but over -- at least for the near future.

Canalys analyst James Wang remarked in the report, "When Apple does decide to refresh its iPad range it will not experience the buzz of previous launches."

While acknowledging that the Android ecosystem and platform still have some issues to be worked out, Canalys senior analyst Tim Shepherd also projected in the report that we will "see a substantial increase in the quantity, as well as the quality, of apps built or optimized for Android tablets over the next 12 months, as Google brings more attention to them through improvements to the Play store, and as the addressable base of devices continues to soar."

The tablet market overall did well with more than 34 million tablets shipped during the quarter, up 43 percent on an annual basis. Tablets also accounted for roughly a third (31 percent) of worldwide tablet shipments.

Canalys isn't the only market intelligence business affirming that Android is taking over the tablet market.

According to the Strategy Analytics second quarter report published on Monday, Android accounted for 67 percent of worldwide tablet shipments in Q2.

Both iOS and Windows declined to 28 percent and 4.5 percent of the global market share, respectively.

Chart via Canalys

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