New Tablet Market Share

We all know that Apple didn’t invent the tablet but they were able to make it cool and give a lot of people a reason to buy one.  Because of this, Apple has dominated the tablet market since the introduction to the original iPad in 2010.  Fairly soon after the release of the iPad, Android start to get it’s feet wet in the tablet market.  Android really struggled to gain any kind of traction in tablet market at first.

A new study done by the Pew Research Center has found that while Android was struggling in the beginning, Android is now really making some headway in gaining ground in the tablet market.

In 2011, Android has a dismal 15% of the total market share of tablets to Apple’s 81%.  2012 was another story altogether.  Android managed to rise to 48% of the tablet market share while Apple had dropped to 52%.  A big part of Android’s success was the introduction of the Kindle Fire whose low price point allowed a larger number of people to hop on the tablet bandwagon.  Another thing to note is that these numbers do not include Google’s Nexus 7 or the new Kindle Fire HD’s.

What do all of these numbers mean?  I believe that these numbers are going to change much the way that the smartphone numbers changed a couple of years ago.  The iPhone was the king of smartphones but as Android grew in popularity due to either price point, hardware, or options, Android began to outpace the iPhone.  I think the same is going to happen with tablets.  Soon Android will outpace iPads in the tablet market.

What this means in the industry is that I have seen and we are pushing more development for both Android and iOS tablets whereas we used to just get requests for iPad specific applications.  Let’s not forget that with all this competition the ultimate winner is always going to be the consumer because of the constant innovation and lower prices that competition promotes.

What are your thoughts on these numbers?  Where do you see the tablet industry going?