Android continues growing its tablet share as Google’s operating system snagged 67 percent of the globl market in the second quarter of 2013. Apple’s iPad slid to 28 percent, while Windows managed to scrape together a 4.5 percent share of the market.
Peter King, director of tablets at Strategy Analytics, which released the numbers today, said in a statement that the global branded tablet shipments reached 36.2 million units in second quarter 2013, up 47 percent from 24.6 million in Q2 2012. King notes that the shipments of branded tablets slowed some as few new products came to market during the quarter.
“When we add in White-Box Tablets, shipments reached 51.7 million units, up 43 percent from 36.1 million in Q2 2012,” King added. ” Android is now making steady progress due to hardware partners like Samsung, Amazon, Google and White-Box tablets which, despite the fact that branded OEMs are lowering price-points and putting pressure on the White-Box manufacturers, are still performing well.”
Apple iOS shipments hit 14.6 million iPads in the second quarter 2013 which declined 14 percent annually.
In the same quarter a year ago the first retina display iPads were launched, which King said could partly explain the decline as there were no new models in this quarter.
“However, to compensate that, iPad Mini which was not available a year ago, now freely available was expected to take the figure higher than 14.6 million,” King added.
Apple CEO Tim Cook took a stab at Android tablets during the company’s latest earnings call. When talking about the iPad, Cook referenced reports on Web share, which showed that 84 percent of all web traffic from tablets came from iPads.
“If there are lots of other tablets selling, I don’t know what they’re being used for,” Cook said.
