A research firm said that Android grabs more tablet market share during the fourth quarter of last year but Apple’s iPad still dominates the category.
Based on the report, there is a 39
percent increase in the fourth quarter on Android tablet market share
compared to the 29 percent the previous year. They were able to ship
10.5 million Android tablets on the same quarter. On the other hand,
Apple was able to sell 15.4 million iPads but compared to the previous
year; there has been a decrease in the market share wherein they only
got 58 percent compared to the 68 percent a year earlier.
Strategy Analytics director, Peter King,
said that during the fourth quarter of 2011, Global Tablet shipments
hit a record of 26.8 million units which is up to 150 percent increase
from the same period a year ago.
“Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter,” King said.
Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston said “Android
is so far proving relatively popular with tablet manufacturers despite
nagging concerns about fragmentation of Android’s operating system,
user-interface and app store ecosystem.”
Also according to the Strategy
Analytics, aside form Android and Apple, Microsoft Windows powered
tablets also got 1.5 percent share on the tablet market.
“The upcoming release of Windows 8
this year cannot come quickly enough for Microsoft, so its hardware
partners can start competing more effectively in the tablet space,” it said.
Last year, global tablet shipments hit
66.9 million units, which are up 260 percent from 18.6 million in 2010,
according to Strategy Analytics.
“Consumers are increasingly buying tablets in preference to netbooks and even entry-level notebooks or desktops,” it said.
