Android claims top spot in tablets according to Gartner

Today’s news will probably come as little surprise to anyone that’s paid attention to the smartphone market over the last several years, as the tablet market has largely played out in a similar fashion. According to a recently-released Gartner study, Android’s tablet market share overtook iOS’s in 2013, despite the feeling that some people were resistant to the inevitably of that happening.

Gartner’s numbers show Android claiming 62 percent of the tablet market in 2013, with iOS in a distant second with just 36 percent. Microsoft is the last named “competitor” with a 2.1 percent market share.

It’s in the smaller tablet arena that Android is making its mark, and interestingly, a healthy supply of sales (31 percent) are coming from manufacturers that aren’t the top ones that we’re all familiar with. Breaking things down by vendor shows Apple on top with a 36 percent share, but Samsung has made tremendous gains since 2012, growing 336 percent increase to go from just 7.4 percent of the market to 19.1 percent. Asus, Amazon and Lenovo are the other Android — or “Android” in the case of Amazon — manufacturers that are named with 5.6, 4.8 and 3.3 percent of the market, respectively.

While 62 percent of the market is a big margin for Android, it’s well shy of the 78.4 percent of the smartphone market share that it holds. Do you think Android can continue to gain in the tablet market in 2014? If so, will the growth come from Samsung or some of the lesser-known players? And finally, do you think that Android’s dominant tablet position result in Google highlighting apps that aren’t just tablet-ready, but are truly designed for tablets?

source: androidandme