Despite talk of a coming onslaught of Android alternatives, almost all consumer tablet conversations begin and end with Apple’s iPad.
That’s the overall finding of a 115-page report released Tuesday by Jeffries analyst Peter Misek. Now comes a series of charts illustrating Apple’s leadership in a global tablet market. Only one Android-powered tablet from Samsung is expected to rise into double-digits by 2012.
Misek expects Apple iPad sales this year to hit 45 million units worldwide, triple the figure when the tablet launched in 2010. Cupertino’s closest competitor, Samsung, is forecasted to sell just 7 million tablets this year, rising to 12 million in in 2012. Here’s the clincher: iPad sales are seen growing by leaps-and-bounds to 90 million units in 2014. By comparison, Android-based alternatives’ best showing is 18 million in the same time, according to the analyst.
The charts hold more good news for Apple’s tablets plans. North America, the tech giant’s home base, is expected to have half of all tablet market sales. Android-tablets are often positioned as the low-cost alternative to the iPad, particularly outside the United States.
Finally, nearly a third of tablet owners told Misek they use their device as the primary computer. Not only is this bad news for PC manufacturers, such as Acer and HP, but it also puts pressure on iPad alternatives hoping to sell grown-up Gameboys. What’s ironic about this chart is the data comes from Google, Apple’s primary competitor.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
28 responses to “Almost No One Is Even Considering Buying An Android Tablet Over iPad”
Almost no one? That’s a bit of an exaggeration isn’t it? According to the numbers in the chart, at least. Samsung alone takes about 15-20% of the total. When you include the other brands using Android, I guess it will be at least 50%?
Erik is correct.
No one individual android tablet is going to overtake the ipad. Just as few if any individial android handsets outsell the iphone.
But as a platform it looks from those figures that android will outsell iOS.
Found this a very odd article. Why would you look at individual tablets rather than the platform as a whole? Presumably because if you did that it would ruin the pro-apple stance of the article by showing that by 2013 most tablets will be running android.
Not good news – used a couple of android tablet and didnt like them at all. And they crashed a lot. Have an ipad and wouldnt trade it for any other tablet.
And an imac, iphone and even apple tv, but its this – and I cant believe I am even going to have to resort to using this word – fanboyish (urgh) attitude that creeps into so many apple discussions that puts a lot of people off.
Myself included. The article should be titled “Most tablets to run android by 2013”.
i personally think that Jefferies forecast is very optimistic on the Android side. Android has been very successful on the phone market because everyone needs a phone and you can get one almost free or free when you get an Android phone. not the case with iPhone. That pushes a lot of Androids into consumers. In the iPad market… er… Tablet market, Android does not have that helping hand. People have to pay for the thing and unless Android can come up with a product at least the same quality as the iPad, with as many good apps and with a much lower price, it does not stand a chance.
Apple will keep 70 – 80% of the market by 2014.
My family is going Android. With an open environment, one may pick a range of hardware and capabilities and price. Want a smaller tablet…sure! Want one with more features…sure! Want to have a Andriod nook sure!
These things you cannot do under a vendor locked down hardware-software configuration.
The thing to look out for is the velocity of whats to come. In 2010 Andriod phones outsold Iphones for the first time.
You may want to consider the Apps. On different Andriod devices, you’ll be purchasing for each one, and the same app may not work on all of them. If you have an iOS iTunes account, the ONE purchase may be shared on up to 5 devices. For instance if you want Netflix, which is a free app, but only works on a handful of Andriod devices because it has to be customized for each one (then imagine bug fixes being rolled out for each one … no doubt delayed each time, assuming they get rolled out at all)
this is just more “analyst” BS.
total tablet sales in 2011 are going to be much less than the 70 million guess here – yes, a guess. it’s all just a guess, especially from 2012 onward. this year is almost half over already and total iPad sales this year will be less than 45 million due to Apple’s factory limitations. let’s say 30-35 million. all the others won’t sell even half that number. there is certainly a growing future for tablets, but this “analyst” BS hype is way overdone.
and no, Samsung did not sell 2 million tablets in 2010. it shipped 2 million. it probably sold less than 500,000 of those to real people by end of year. that 7″ Galaxy tab overstock has been dumped into the discount channels of the second/third world, but no “analyst” here covers that news. that would require actual research, not BS guesswork.
I agree. This Apple is always correct attitude doesn’t serve anyone well – especially Apple. In order to stay competitive you need to have a realistic look at who is on your tail and this fanboyish article is exactly a case in point of viewing statistics with rose colored glasses. I’ve been an Apple user my entire life starting with the Mac IIcx but I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up a Samsung 10.1 when it comes out instead of the iPad2 just because I want to be able to surf sites that have Flash. Although the Android App market is pretty bare right now I could’ve said the same thing when the iPhone first came out. Actually there was NO App market because Steve Jobs said we didn’t need one because web apps would do the same thing. No one seems to remember that.
Actually, a couple of co-workers just bought Xooms.
The first one bought the Xoom just before a very long airplane flight (ie, 23 hours). He spent time on the flight working on some JavaScript code. As he said, “I could watch movies AND write code–can’t do that with the iPad!”
The second one bought the Xoom for herself and her father. The Xoom supports more video formats–Flash being a priority. If she’d bought him an iPad, she’d be forever converting video formats into ones that the iPad could handle. For her use, she prefers the flexibility of Android.
Mohtek…
Android is not a phone it’s an OS. People are buying and companies are selling phones not OS’s. True, if you add up all of the 130 models of phones using Android as their OS then, collectively, they out sell the ONE model of the iphone. It is sort of like saying that since 100 mice weigh more that ONE cat that mice weigh more than cats. There is no single android phone that has even a significant fraction of the sales of an iphone.
Also these are businesses. What counts in not how many phones use a certain OS. Rather it is how much money your company makes selling phones. And there Apple is ahead by billions of dollars.
Android, and all it’s devices are crap. Honestly, I’m not a fanboy of anything, but most Android devices lack in one crucial thing, which apparently no one seems to understand.
Battery life? Never. Provided alternative? Yes, detachable battery packs. Lol?
Most touch screens are so intuitive, not to mention the OS as well.
People cry the OS being “open,” but what is open exactly? I suggest you look at that.
(Oh and, after you jailbreak a iDevice, which not to mention takes less than 1 minute, you are able to customize it 1000x more, not to mention get any application for free via Appsync. And yes, The App store has better apps and companies supporting those Apps than the Android Market will ever have)
In the end, Android and all the companies that support it, simply make more products than they can sell. Apple will always be in the lead, you can call them all fanboys or whatever, but mind you, shitty products don’t get popular, no matter how hard you try to bend the fact. Last call, hardware does not matter, software does. Anyone who has any reasonable expertise in this field can tell you. Companies producing Android phones, simply try to boast hardware upgrades, when the iPhone can do everything if not better with 2x lower specs. (Camera/Video/Speed)
Not all of those companies produce an Android device….. -.-
You can jail break Android and get a Linux type OS.
Asus Eee Transform gets 8-9 hours with Honeycomb 3.0 (likely a bit more with 3.1) and with the keyboard on t gets 16 hours!!!! Take THAT!!!
The author of this article is an idiot. The reason no one is buyiny Android is the same reason why people didn’t buy the initial G1 or G2 Android phones etc. What the author is saying about tablets is the same thing that was said about Android phones.
All I’ll say is – let the hardwar mature. Can apple really take on a combination of Samsung, LG, Sony, HTC, Motorola etc.
Google is going to have more Androd units sold than Apple by 2013. We saw this with the phone landscape and I’m one for trends.
when I was with apple (i worked in a dealership starting at 17) it was cool, innovative, and had a cool vibe, going against the “man”. Wearing jeans, riding bikes in the hallways, cool rebel stuff. Unfortuantely Apple did not learn any lessons from the companies Apple loves to hate, originally IBM, now “pc”?…they have a good solid company, building great products, great design team, but they are not noticing the revolution happening around them with android / google. with Apples closed architecture, closed app store, they have become the very company they “hated” back in 1984 with the famous commercial…now everyone has earphones in, and ipods on, but the next revolution is not being led by a company, it is being led by an idea called Android. Apple needs to open their eyes, look around, and get back with the people in my opinion.
That’s not true. It’s only true with iOS. My Apps are linked to my gmail account and don’t have to purchase over again. Don’t send this crap over here!