Prediction: In Two Years, Apple Will Have Less Than 50 Percent of the Tablet Market

January 31, 2011 at 8:30 am PT

Android’s gains in the tablet market continue apace with no signs of slowing. In fact, if anything, they’re growing faster. According to new research from Strategy Analytics, Android’s share of the global tablet market grew to 22 percent in the fourth quarter–a tenfold spike over the prior quarter. Meanwhile, Apple’s share slipped to 77 percent from 95 percent–this despite record sales of 7.3 million iPads in the December quarter, more than triple those of Android tablets.

With tablets running the Google mobile OS beginning to proliferate now, those days of Apple’s easy dominace of the market are winding down. Shipments of Android devices in the quarter, for example, leapt to 2.1 million units from about 100,000. “Apple’s volumes will continue to go up, but market share will inevitably go down,” Strategy Analytics’ director Neil Mawston told Bloomberg . “Even at $500 retail, based on some of the research we’ve done, that’s probably two or three times more than what most mass market consumers are expecting to pay….If you were to ask me in two years time will Apple have less than 50 percent of the global tablet market, I think that’s a certainty.”

Perhaps. Depends on how the competition shakes out, I suppose. And just how high Apple raises the bar for its rivals with the iPad 2.

UPDATE: It also depends on the manner in which the competition reports sales numbers. To wit, it turns out that those 2 million Galaxy Tabs Samsung sold were actually sold into the channel and not necessarily to consumers, suggesting that this spike in Android growth may not be quite what it seems.

Tagged with: Android, Apple, digital, dominace, gains, Google, growth, hardware, innovation, iPad, iPad 2, market, Neil Mawston, OS, record, research, rivals, sales, share, spike, Strategy Analytics, tablet market, tablets

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http://www.marketingtactics.com/ davebarnes

“Apple Will Have Less Than 50 Percent of the Tablet Market”: by units.
Maybe by revenue (gross sales $).
AND, Apple will have way more than 50% of the profit $.
Anonymous

I’m thinking that if some genie told Apple, “you’ll have only 40% of the tablet market in 2013,” they’d reply… “fine with us.”
http://twitter.com/BenjaminZAMayo Benjamin Mayo

The numbers are a bit skewed. It’s just shipments to the channel. If I wanted to, I could create “BenjaminOS” and build 30million ‘tablets’ and supposedly steal marketshare from iOS.

Android will gain considerably soon, but it’s performance now is drastically overstated. Android will dominate phones, and dominate tablets. By how much though is still questionable. Even if Apple had 25% of the smartphone market, that’s still massive. Just because your not first, doesn’t mean your out the picture. Especially as Apple continues to sell the single-most demanded smartphone in the planet.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Diego-Goldberg/1283136509 Diego Goldberg

Samsung “shipped” 2 million tablets. They sold a pretty small quantity of those. Read this: “Despite crowing about shipping 2 million Galaxy Tabs, Samsung is now admitting that it’s not selling very many of the seven-inch tablets,” Jay Yarow reports for The Business Insider. “
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Mills/1099638671 Tony Mills

Let’s see, there where no other tables, and apple had 96%?? Now the Galaxy tab sells 2 million (and it is a fine product), and you tell me Apples overall share has dropped. Duh..
Since there wasn’t a Market before Apple created it. Apple put more into it, Samsung is using someone else’s OS. How long until Google has a Microsoft moment and starts charging for use of the OS?
Right now, Apple is selling them as fast as they can turn them out. If you are selling all you can make, that is really 100 percent market share.
$330AShareMakesMeGrimace>8-{

Two years is a long way off in the computer industry and predictions are just guesses. The industry changes too quickly to be giving forecasts. In December 2009, netbooks sales were predicted to increase tremendously. You see what happened to netbook sales in 2010 because a unexpected, new product was introduced that the industry didn’t even dream of.

So, how about these pundits keeping predictions within a six month time frame to even get close to reality. At least wait until the iPad 2 is introduced to use as a starting point for their predictions.

This article overlooks the fact that the Galaxy Tab can’t be considered a true tablet since it doesn’t run a tablet OS as Google has pointed out. Big smartphones shouldn’t count at all until Honeycomb runs on them. Many analysts don’t count tablets as PCs because they don’t run desktop OSes, so there needs to be some agreement on whether the OS changes the category of the device or not.
$330AShareMakesMeGrimace>8-{

These pundits are always comparing the whole of Android device vendors to one company, Apple. They look at Android as some huge entity steamrolling over Apple. The Android platform is made up of dozens of companies that are also competing against each other. What’s so powerful about that? Every device that Apple makes gives money back to Apple whereas Android profits go to many companies each taking a small piece of the smartphone or tablet pie. How is that hurting Apple financially unless it’s perceived the only way a company can be successful is if they own 100% of the market? It’s the business model that counts, not merely the outright number of units sold.
Anonymous

Those are shipments of Android tablets to carriers, not sales to consumers. Apple’s numbers are sales to consumers. There are 5 Galaxy Tabs at every carrier store in the known universe, while Samsung admitted sales to consumers were “quite small.” There is no channel stuffing on Apple’s side because they can’t keep the devices on shelves. They are still only selling iPad in about half the countries of iPhone.

Prediction: the iPad market is going to be just like the iPod market. It will settle down to 75% Apple, 10% Samsung, and 15% Other. They are essentially the same device, with all the same components, of which software is the most important, except iPod is radio and iPad is TV.

There is exactly the same denialism about iPad today amongst analysts as there was about iPod in 2002. They don’t understand why consumers are buying the Apple devices or how hard it will be for generic makers to compete in a market where consumer expectations have been set by Apple.

Apple, Samsung, Other.
http://nigeltufnel.myopenid.com/ Nigel Tufnel

Exactly.
http://bit.ly/samirsshah ???? ???

Yes. For iPad 2 they are skimping on memory, camera megapixels and I think many other things. Yes, it does not affect them today but it does down the line after a year or so.

Mr. Cook. It is multitasking being mainstream now. Give us 1 GB.
http://www.1mediere.ro Mediator

That really depends on what iPad 2 will be capable of.
Anonymous

What’s the point John? Does it really matter who has the largest market share? I think Apple focuses on building a quality product while making a decent profit. I agree with MCG1969, if they only had 40% market share, that would be great, especially with the profit they are making off of each iPad.

John, the argument you are making is old and doesn’t mean anything.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1320232807 Jason Preziosi

Seems like a laughably wrong prediction, especially after the story “update.” I don’t know a single person that owns a tablet that isn’t an ipad.

I’m an android user and still if faced with the option of which tablet to buy, I’d go with an ipad. I think until android beefs up their app store their is even a contest. People that want to tinker with and root/hack a product will gravitate towards Android while others that just want a product to work will keep buying up those ipads.

Even my grandmother knows significant tech changes happen in a two year period. You have no clue what the ipad will be like in two years, and other competitors will still be trying to make ipad clones when we get to that point in time.

In the end one of the commenters below said it best. “Does it really matter who has the largest market share??”
http://nigeltufnel.myopenid.com/ Nigel Tufnel

So what exactly are you hoping to do with 1 GB that you can’t do with 512 MB? That’s more than enough to cache a large number of web pages, which is the main complaint people had with the original iPad’s meager memory.
Anonymous

Why are people arguing over “tablet market share” when no one has any idea about what the market size is? Regardless fo whether Apple’s market shre is 95% or 78%, Apple will likely sell more iPads in 2011 than it did in 2010, and it will sell more in 2012 than it does in 2011 as it increases its enterprise reach, adds functionality, etc. Android tablets may or may not have a place, but they will likely grow the market, not shrink it, so all this talk is moot
http://twitter.com/perk Perk

Agreed.
In addition, two words: App Store.
The Apps are the key to the long term success of the iPad– even more so than the iPhone.

Prediction: In Two Years, Apple Will Have Less Than 50 Percent of the Tablet Market

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