New sales statistics from Gartner Inc.
Worldwide sales of tablets to end users reached 195.4 million units in 2013, a 68 percent increase on 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. While sales of iOS tablets grew in the fourth quarter of 2013, iOS’s share declined to 36 percent in 2013. The tablet growth in 2013 was fueled by the low-end smaller screen tablet market, and first time buyers; this led Android to become the No. 1 tablet operating system (OS), with 62 percent of the market.
Source: Gartner (February 2014)
From a vendor perspective, Apple’s strong fourth quarter helped it to maintain the top position in the market in 2013. Samsung, ranked No. 2, exhibited the highest growth of the worldwide tablet vendors, at 336 percent, in 2013. The expansion and improvement of its Galaxy tablet portfolio, together with strong marketing and promotions, helped Samsung shrink the gap with Apple. In line with its smartphone approach, Samsung’s oversegmentation of its tablet portfolio helped it to offer a wider size and price choice but also helped it to test the market and find niches.
Amongst the vendors that have a less than 6 percent share of the worldwide tablet market, Lenovo did particularly well in 2013 with tablet sales growing 198 percent. “Lenovo‘s success is a combination of launching innovative new tablet models during the second half of 2013 and the sales of its Yoga model and Windows tablets doing particularly well,” said Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Moreover, Lenovo’s strong R&D capabilities and its ability to react quickly to tablet market dynamics have helped it introduce innovative and a range of attractive products to the market. However, establishing a strong brand with consumers outside China, which is especially important in the tablet market, remains a key challenge.”
Source: Gartner (February 2014)
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