Android Beats iOS As the Top Tablet OS

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.

Comments

The year of the Linux Tablet

[Niterios]

It is finally here! Now we just need it to be an open platform.

Re:The year of the Linux Tablet

[DJRumpy]

They do this every time. Gartner left out almost 4 million Apple sales. Those were actual sales, rather than 'shipped'. This happens every time, and we always find out later that Shipped from folks like Samsung != Sales from Apple.

Apple reports Sales. The others do not.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/03/gartner-ignores-apples-sales-numbers-reports-android-marketshare-doubled-ipad-in-2013

And yet apple sells more tablets than anybody

[noh8rz10]

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.

Re:And yet apple sells more tablets than anybody

[amiga3D]

What are you smoking? Those shitty tablets have one thing in common and that is a shitty screen. The touch screen is by far the most important part of the tablet experience and a shitty screen makes for one bad experience. That's the first thing I noticed when I picked up the Samsung Galaxy tablet. A screen to rival the iPad. That was the beginning of actual competition. Before that it didn't exist. I see those crap tablets on Craigslist all the time at giveaway prices.

Questionable Numbers

[whisper_jeff]

Sure, if you go with Gartner's numbers which undercut Apple's reported sales figures (you know, numbers that undergo SEC scrutiny for accuracy) by almost 4 million units while also adding in Android "white box" units that include TV dongles which track as tablets despite being not-at-all tablets while also clouding the results by reporting Apple's sales-to-end-users numbers with Android's shipped-into-channel numbers. So, yeah, if you cut Apple's numbers and artificially inflate Android's numbers, yes, Android is beating iOS in the tablet space.

And now you may mod me troll while claiming I'm just an Apple fanboy for speaking the truth.

I have such fond memories of when this site wasn't such a blatant tool of spin doctors for certain industry interests...

Gartner can't add

[david.emery]

From http://appleinsider.com/articl...
"The most glaring inconsistency is a disconnect between Gartner's 70.4 million iPad sales and Apple's self-reported 74 million unit sales for 2013. From the first quarter — Apple's second fiscal quarter — to the fourth, the company reported iPad sales of 19.5 million, 14.6 million, 14.1 million and 26 million, respectively. The total: 74.2 million iPads sold during 2013. "

Note these numbers are reported by Apple on SEC filings, not on press releases.

Re:Slightly biased...

[Bing Tsher E]

My two year old iPod Touch is considered obsolete by Apple. I paid full retail for it and it can't run the new iOS. It was one of my biggest mistake purchases recently.

Re:ANDROID != LINUX

[schnell]

So what?

Giving Linux credit for Android is like saying that FreeBSD is a major desktop OS because of MacOS X, or a major mobile OS because of iOS. It's not. All the bits that make it a success were added by someone else and the underlying kernel is essentially invisible to the end user.

Celebrate Google's success with Android. Don't try to turn it into a success story for Linux when it's not. Linux has succeeded remarkably well in the server and embedded spaces but has not been terribly successful in the desktop or mobile spaces. And you know what? That's okay.