Android tablets catch up to iPad, as Windows 8 struggles
Apple still dominates the world of tablets, but devices from Samsung and Asus are enjoying increased popularity.
Apple's iron grip on the world of tablets is starting to ease, with Android-powered rivals starting to catch up to the hugely popular iPad.
New stats from research firm IDC proclaim that at the end of the first three months of 2013, Apple held 39.6 per cent of the global tablet market, down from 58.1 per cent in the same period during 2012.
That doesn't mean Apple is failing -- the fruit-flavoured firm shipped an estimated 19.5 million devices in the first quarter, up from an estimated 11.8 million in the same stretch of time in 2012. Instead, the drop in market share is down to increased competition from Android tablets.
As in the smart phone world, Samsung is Apple's foremost foe, shipping an estimated 8.8 million tablets in the first quarter, up from just 2.3 million in the same period last year. That's an increase of 282.6 per cent, IDC says, and shows that gadgets like the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Tab 2 aren't being ignored.
Asus is in third place with an estimated 2.7 million shipments, likely down to the Taiwanese firm having built the stellar Nexus 7, which Google anointed with a pure version of Android and slapped with a bargain £159 price tag.
Surface tension
While tablet sales overall are up 142 per cent year-on-year in the first three-month chunk of 2013, not every manufacturer is making a killing. Microsoft shipped an estimated 900,000 Surface tablets, suggesting that its Windows 8-powered devices are finding their way into fans' pockets, but not in particularly huge numbers.
It takes a while for new kinds of tech to catch on, so perhaps we'll see Microsoft's numbers increase. For context, the first-generation iPad, which arguably popularised the concept of big, touchscreen gadgets with shoppers, sold 3 million units in its first 80 days on sale.
More worrying for Microsoft is the low adoption of Windows 8 tablets. IDC stated that combined sales of Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets across all manufacturers reached just 1.8 million units.
Which tablet would you most like to own? What does Microsoft need to do to make Windows 8 a success? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.