The Mobile Gadgeteer

Matthew Miller & Joel Evans

Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

By Matthew Miller | January 27, 2012, 9:57am PST

Summary: It’s been said before there is no tablet market, just an iPad market. However, 2011 started showing that wasn’t true and Android is making gains in the tablet space.

Rachel already posted some of the data from the recent tablet market report from Strategy Analytics, but I wanted to chime in with some thoughts from the Mobile Gadgeteer as well. I love and use my iPad 2 all the time, but after filling a role as the tech editor for an upcoming Galaxy Tab book I have to say that the Samsung Android tablets are quite good and likely going to get even better with Ice Cream Sandwich.

I do own an HTC Flyer and find it to be a valuable tool for note taking and portable media needs. Honeycomb didn’t impress me too much though and I still have Gingerbread on my Flyer. According to the Strategy Analytics report, Android garnered 39.1 percent of the global tablet share last quarter. This is great considering they were at 29 percent in 2010. Apple still leads with the iPad at 57.6 percent, but that is down from 68.2 percent in 2010 so Apple can’t sit around and not worry about Android.

Customized Android interfaces, such as those found on the Amazon Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, are popular and these two low cost Android devices likely were significant in improving the sales data for Android tablets. We are starting to see other Android tablets come out with unique forms, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and at more competitive prices so it is likely we will see continued growth in Android tablets like we have seen with their smartphones as well.

We will also see Windows 8 coming later this year and the tablet race is far from over. Do you use an Android tablet and did you buy one in 2011 to help increase the market share?

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Are you quoting me?

"It's been said before there is no tablet market, just an iPad market."

I'm just wondering because whenever I write that, the Apple fanbois descend on me like I just uttered the most evil phrase ever. Yet I'm pretty sure that Apple fanbois like David Morgenstern and John Gruber have said the same. Clearly I was wrong though.

So Matthew, when you quote me, please give me the credit I deserve. Thank you.
toddybottom_z
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@toddybottom_z

That line is frequently used by ZDNet blogger James Kendrick, don't be an egotist.
Doctor Demento
28th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@Doctor Demento
"don't be an egotist"
Clearly that was not my intention:
"Yet I'm pretty sure that Apple fanbois like David Morgenstern and John Gruber have said the same."

Many Apple fanbois make this claim, I highlighted 2 of them in my post. Yet when I take that to its logical conclusion that this is a monopoly market that is not good for consumers, those same Apple fanbois suddenly start talking about how great Android is. Odd.
toddybottom_z
29th Jan
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I read the original article you are referring too.

It said shipped not sold.

Pagan jim
James Quinn
27th Jan
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SERIOUSLY.. is this news? they "SHIPPED" a lot of tablets..

@James Quinn - ...that are now sitting on shelves collecting dust.. before they are fire sales, because no one wants to buy them.. this isn't news..
theFunkDoctorSpoc
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@theFunkDoctorSpoc

Yup, nobody buys them....that's why Apple is flipping out going apepoopy crazy trying to sue Android tablets into nonexistence, because they pose no threat....yup, yup that makes total sense....Apple always spends its money on wasteful, unnecessary pursuits, that's precisely why they have no cash reserves.....
Doctor Demento
28th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@DoctorDemento lol

The greatest ICS tablet I've used to date is the HP Touchpad. That IS saying something...
Fat Albert 1
28th Jan
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lets look at how Motorola is doing..

@James Quinn - seems Moto has already shipped all there dust collectors into the channel and resellers are just not going to accept anymore duds taking up shelf space..

"Motorola Mobilitys latest earnings report: A loss of $80 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, and mobile device shipments of 10.5 million versus 11.3 million a year ago. Still, few were as grim as these: 200,000 tablets shipped in the fourth quarter and just 1 million shipped for all of 2011. In other words, it took MoMo a full year to ship 1/15th the number of iPads Apple sold in its most recent quarter.

And this is the company that Google has decided to spend $12.5 billion on."

http://allthingsd.com/20120126/motorola-raises-barely-a-ripple-in-the-tablet-wave/
theFunkDoctorSpoc
27th Jan
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Android eReaders are doing well when sold at a loss

"Customized Android interfaces, such as those found on the Amazon Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, are popular and these two low cost Android devices likely were significant in improving the sales data for Android tablets"

In other words, the only successful Android "tablets" are those that are sold with every single identifiable Android trait removed, by companies that sell these devices as color eReaders, and are sold at a loss with the hopes of making it up later with content sales.

"We will also see Windows 8 coming later this year"

This is the only hope we as consumers have that there will be choice in the tablet market. If Microsoft and their OEMs fail, it's over. Our choices in the tablet market for the next 20 years will be "Do I want to buy the latest generation iPad or save $100 and buy last year's model?"

It is a sick market. We all lose.
toddybottom_z
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@toddybottom_z you always say "its a sick market. We all lose." but the truth is their are options for people who don't want an iPad. They are not as good as the iPad, they don't offer as much as the iPad (App Store), but the choice does exist. This article points out that their is choice in the market for an android tablet/s, please stop insisting the market is sick. If the only product available was the iPad then yes, the market would be sick and Apple could charge whatever they want, but the truth is Apple simply has manufactured the Gold standard in this category and the vast majority of people want it.
cwbuechler@...
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@cwbuechler@...
"They are not as good as the iPad, they don't offer as much as the iPad"

That isn't real choice then. A healthy competitive market would give me the choice of multiple products that were as good as each other. Instead, I can buy an iPad or I have the artificial choice of buying something that sucks. That isn't real choice. That isn't the output of a healthy competitive market. That is like a tyrant holding elections but anyone who votes for a different party is tortured and killed.

"If the only product available was the iPad then yes, the market would be sick"

No, that isn't the gold standard. Windows PCs were never the only personal computers available but when Windows had 95% marketshare, that was a sick market. Sure, consumers had the choice to buy a Mac with its awful MacOS but that wasn't a real choice. It would have been better if consumers could have had the choice of Windows or some other excellent OS that was just as good as Windows. Microsoft simply manufactured the gold standard of OSs and the vast majority of people wanted it. Every single one of them could have purchased a Mac. They didn't because when they looked at Macs, they saw how terrible they were.

Same thing today.

It is a sick market. We all lose.
toddybottom_z
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@toddybottom_z
You do realize Windows still has greater market share than the iPad so I'm not sure what you meant by "that was a sick market".
anono
27th Jan
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No

97% of all tablet internet traffic is from iPads. Internet traffic share is the best way of cutting through this shipping vs sold controversy.

Unless you want to admit that Windows has 97% marketshare, iPad has a bigger marketshare in the tablet market than Windows does in the desktop market.

I wish you guys would make up your mind about Apple's success. You are more than happy to gloat about how Apple is crushing everyone else in the market when David Morgenstern and John Gruber write that there is no tablet market, there is only an iPad market. Yet when I say the same thing, you Apple fanbois are "no, iPad isn't doing that well, look at how many Android tablets shipped. Android has 40% marketshare. That's really good. There is a tablet market. A strong tablet market full of really good devices that compete very well with the iPad. I know that when friends ask me which tablet they should buy, I tell them that they have their choice of about 10 really nice tablets and that the decision is not an easy one at all."

Or not.
toddybottom_z
27th Jan
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RE: Android tablet market share up 10%, iPad down 10% through 2011

@cwbuechler@...

"but the truth is their are options for people who don't want an iPad."

Very true. Not only there's options, there's 90% more options than what we had in the desktop space with Windows monopoly. A consumer walking into a retail store for a PC only really had a choice of Windows or Macs (no retail shop sold you Linux). A consumer walking into a Best Buy today have a whole list of tablet choices, if they don't want iPad. And at all price-point. There's also eReaders and Kindle Fires which according to Amazon is selling pretty well.
dave95.
27th Jan
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dave95: read up on the difference

There is a difference between "real" choice and artificial choice. When no one can recommend any of these other "choices" then they aren't real choices.

Likewise, no one could recommend Macs back in the day so Macs were not a real choice. Anyone could choose a Mac if they wanted to but they would be foolish to do so. Likewise, unless you, dave95, can recommend that people should be buying these other tablets instead of the iPad, their existence does not signify real choice in the marketplace. Just like the existence of the Mac did not signify real choice in the desktop marketplace.

And you are wrong about PCs and Macs being the only options. There were NeXT machines, OS2 machines, Linux machines (just because they weren't in Best Buy doesn't mean they didn't exist) and Amiga just to name a few. Consumers had many choices, it just so happened that Windows was the only good one. With iPad having 97% marketshare, this proves that either all the other tablets are terrible or they are really good but Apple is keeping them from being successful.
toddybottom_z
27th Jan
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