Microsoft’s tablets are eating away at iPad sales

By

Put your hands on me.
Microsoft is taking the tablet fight to Apple.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Apple might have once owned the tablet market, but Microsoft is making rapid advances in sales — and may even be approaching iPad numbers by 2019, according to a new “Tablet Operating System Forecast” report by Strategy Analytics.

Summarizing the first nine months of 2015, and extrapolating the trends to try and predict the next few years, the report reveals how sales of Windows tablets are up 58 percent compared to 2014, and are on track to sell 22 million this year. That’s 10 percent of the market, compared to Apple’s 22 percent.

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The remaining 68 percent of the market is taken up by Android tablets.

Strategy Analytics thinks that, over time, this is likely to mean that Microsoft will sell 49 million tablets per year, more than twice its number in 2015. If this is accurate, the research firm thinks that Microsoft will hold 18 percent of the tablet market, Apple will have 23 percent, and Google will own 59 percent.

Personally I’m skeptical about trying to draw long-term conclusions about where certain markets are headed, but it’s definitely interesting to see that Microsoft is no longer a bit player in the tablet industry.

I’m a massive Apple fan, but based on the lukewarm reviews the iPad Pro received (which was widely viewed as a device with the potential to turn around Apple’s flagging iPad business) and the impressive work Microsoft has done with devices like the Surface, I’m not surprised to see Microsoft start to catch up in terms of sales.

You can read a debate about Microsoft and Apple’s tablet strategies, between myself and my Cult of Android frenemy Killian Bell, by clicking here.

Via: TechRadar

 

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