Over 34 million tablets were shipped globally in the April-June period, a 43-percent increase from the same period of a year ago, Canalys said in an Aug. 1 report.
Apple, which created the tablet market single-handedly with its iPad, saw its market share drop to 43 percent during the second quarter, with its tablet shipments falling 14 percent from a year earlier to 14.6 million units.
By contrast, Android-based tablets accounted for 53 percent of the global market, as shipments from Samsung Electronics Co., Amazon.com Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Taiwan's Acer Inc. each grew annually by over 200 percent, driven by increasing demand for small-screen tablets, Canalys said.
Canalys estimated that 68 percent of the tablets shipped in the second quarter had a screen size smaller than 9 inches.
“When Apple does decide to refresh its iPad range it will not experience the buzz of previous launches,” Canalys analyst James Wang said in the report.
“Tablets are now mainstream products and hardware innovation is increasingly difficult. With branded Android tablets available for less than US$150, the PC market has never been so good for consumers, who are voting with their wallets,” he said. Despite its 53-percent share, Android still lags far behind Apple's iOS platform in the availability of fully optimized tablet apps, and tablet app downloads from the Apple App Store dwarf those from Google Play, Canalys said.
But Android is expected to continue to close the ecosystem lead iOS has in tablets and increase share in coming quarters, the research company predicted.
Another survey conducted by display research firm WitsView said that the iPad market share dropped to 35.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, hitting a new low.
This is because Apple's 9.7-inch regular iPad entered the end of its life cycle in the second quarter, while the 7.9-inch iPad mini's relatively higher prices also contributed to slower sales, WitsView explained.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/mzx8jjz
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