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Android Beats iOS As the Top Tablet OS

Posted by Unknown on from the gnu-feeling-left-out dept.

sfcrazy writes "Linux is on a roll. After conquering the smartphone space, Android is now dominating the tablet space. According to a new study by Gartner, 'the tablet growth in 2013 was fueled by the low-end smaller screen tablet market, and first time buyers; this led Android to become the No. 1 tablet operating system (OS), with 62 percent of the market.'" Also, everyone is buying tablets.(~200 million sold in 2013 vs ~115 million in 2012). Microsoft still only has 2% of the tablet market.

1 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. And yet apple sells more tablets than anybody by noh8rz10 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Who is making all these tablets? Here's the rough breakdown of 2013 unit volume from Gartner for worldwide:
    * Apple 36%
    * Samsung 19%
    * ASUS 6%
    * Amazon 5%
    * Lenovo 3%
    * All others 31%

    the first notable thing is that Apple sells more than Samsung, Asus, Amazon, and Lenovo combined. The second notable thing, who is the "all others"? All sort of white-label chinese makers? Who is buying these? And can you say that these are truly Android tablets if they have some sort of modified android 2.3?

    Here are the categories that I see in this market:

    * iOS
    * "Premium" Android. The Galaxy Tabs, the Nexus tablets, etc. Sold in US, EU, etc. The ones we are familiar with
    * Kindle
    * MS Surface
    * white label tablets. Presumably built and sold in China, elsewhere.

    We need to recognize that premium android might as well be a different OS than white label android. The apps will be different, the languages will be different, the monetization will be different, the fragmentation will be different. For all intensive purposes premium android is as removed from white label android as it is from kindle.