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Research: Android taking over the tablet market from iOS

27 points by cwoods 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
melange 13y ago
This makes the front page whereas google being tried for wiretapping does not. No pro google bias here. Move along.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  It's an obvious bum wrap...
devx 13y ago
I'm sure a lot will say now that "It was inevitable. Android is made up of multiple OEM's, yadda, yadda...". But I seem to remember not too long ago that "iPad was the iPod of tablets" or something, and therefore will always have 80+ percent market share. I guess that didn't turn out true.
- Touche 13y ago
  You're absolutely right. That people could hold these two ideas in their head at the same time still boggles my mind: 1) Tablets are the future of personal computers 2) The tablet market is more like the media player market than the phone market. This was absolutely a popular belief just a couple of years ago, although the people who said this have become quite silent.
Touche 13y ago
Relevant: > I’m not trying to cherry-pick data. I’m simply observing, based on Apple’s sales data and Google’s activation data, that the tablet market doesn’t today look anything like the smartphone market ever did. The iPad didn’t enter the tablet market. It created the tablet market. The iPad’s role in the tablet market much more closely resembles the iPod’s role in the digital music player market a decade ago than it does the iPhone’s role in the 2008 phone market. > http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance > There’s an iPad market, and the iPad could be classified as a tablet, from a hardware-centric viewpoint. But the market for non-iPad tablets is about as big today as it was before the iPad, which isn’t nothing, but it’s close enough to nothing that Apple doesn’t need to worry about it. > http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-tablet-market http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-...
- badman_ting 13y ago
  Also relevant: the dates of those posts.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Those posts were making statements about the future, and both were unequivocally wrong.
    - mamcx 13y ago
      that the tablet market doesn’t today* look anything like the smartphone market ever did. That was correct back then. Also the smartphone market is defined by several competing platforms, form-factors, tech and capabilities. The tablet market is defined by the iPad, and the android trying to be the iPad.
      - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
        That claim was only correct in the US, and while Gruber thinks the US system has unfairly aided Android, it's fairly clear the opposite is true.
        mamcx 13y ago
        Back them truckloads of tablets worldwide was shipped. But all of them were market failures. Only iPad have traction + mindshare. BTW: "it's fairly clear the opposite is true." The opposite of what?
        ZeroGravitas 13y ago
        No, they were market failures in the US, they've been doing well in Asia especially (as have big Android phones), see my link elsewhere in this thread. This is not particularly unusual, e.g. Xbox vs Playstation sales mix varies by region. And South Korea, Japan and China are now important markets for Android games companies. The "opposite is true" means that it's fairly clear now that the US subsidization model hides the cost differences between phones, and puts an effective floor on prices for handsets, which favors iPhones because they are designed around the American price system. This effect is much less strong or non-existant elsewhere on the planet and Android benefits from the ability to compete fairly on price. Android tablets have followed the same pattern that Android phones followed in these less distorted markets, though slightly faster since Android phones have already created a beachhead.
selectodude 13y ago
Wait, wait. So in a quarter where the newest iPad is 6 months old, there were less iPads sold than every Android tablet manufacturer in the world combined? APPLE IS DOOMED
- danmaz74 13y ago
  Apple is far from doomed. But those who were saying that Apple would dominate the tablet market forever were wrong. PS please don't answer "but look at the profits". They will come down too, as it's only right in a competitive market.
  - aroch 13y ago
    I don't think anyone of note has said Apple will dominate the tablet market forever.
    - ajross 13y ago
      There are quotes from Gruber and Arment elsewhere in this thread that say pretty much exactly that...
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      No, they said there was no such thing as a tablet market, only an iPad market.
    - scholia 13y ago
      "The iPad didn’t enter the tablet market. It created the tablet market. The iPad’s role in the tablet market much more closely resembles the iPod’s role in the digital music player market a decade ago than it does the iPhone’s role in the 2008 phone market." http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance It was a popular meme among Apple fanboys a couple of years ago....
  - simonh 13y ago
    You mean how their margins in iPods and phones and desktop computers have .... er ... What was your point again?
Zigurd 13y ago
The tablet market is not like the phone market. In many ways, it will be easier for Android to gain market share, since the channel isn't controlled by carriers in some markets. Any OEM can enter this business, and many many will. Tablets are the post PC device, and the skip-the-PC device. Tablets will be the inexpensive personal internet access device for Asian markets that now rely on internet cafes. Apple will take only the luxury market here, but will make plenty of money at that. Tablets will displace PCs from the desks and especially the non-desk-bound workers in enterprises who can't justify the support costs of a PC. Apple will be a stronger contender here because of their long head start, but Android has some technical advantages as well as cost and choice of OEMs. One thing that's missing is software that takes advantage of tablet power and screen real estate. My prediction is that this will happen first in enterprise software where budgets will support more ambitious software development, and that it's possible it will happen on Android first because it's easier to make a suite of cooperating apps for Android.
- laureny 13y ago
  > Tablets are the post PC device, and the skip-the-PC device. It really depends what people mean by "post". If it's post as in "will replace", then it's nonsense: laptops and desktops are going to be around for a very long time. If it's "will complement the laptop/desktop market", then I completely agree.
  - smtddr 13y ago
    Nah, the only people who actually need a laptop/desktop instead of a tablet+bluetoothKeyboard are people who need a lot more power than tablets can provide today. So that's digital artists, developers with their VMware/VirtualBox/etc and servers. I look to my non-techie dad(though he use to do those punch-card stuff) as an example; got him an iPad and the only thing he misses from his previous laptops is the keyboard. I'm very interested in what other people think about this. Does the general public need anything more than a high-end tablet + bluetooth keyboard? Or maybe, just because some people enjoy a big screen, a tablet with a docking-station providing the keyboard, mouse and big screen?(which is basically a PC, I guess). Some of my coworkers predict a day where smartphones are so powerful, that you'll just put them in a docking-station at work and it'll be just as powerful as a high-end notebook today. Today's consumer laptops/desktop are like Adobe Flash. They're both dead and the tech to replace them exists, we just haven't completely agreed on how to go about it - but they are both definitely dead.
adrianlmm 13y ago
I own an Asus TS300 tablet, and one thing comes to my mind, Android is mediocre, I've tried the iPad and the Surface and their quality is 10 times better, so I presume this numbers are due the cheap $59 tablets that have become popular, but just for the price.
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  The article claims the average selling price of non-iPad tablets (which must be 99% Android) increased by 17%, while the iPad mini pulled the iPad ASP down by the same amount, so your theory is at odds with the facts.
  - clarky07 13y ago
    You have to know the real numbers to make that determination. Increased 17% from 100 is 117. iPad decreasing from 550 to 450 (pulled out of my ...) would mean the parent is still right.
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      That's not how averages work. More $59 tablets will only increase the ASP if it's below $59.
  - adrianlmm 13y ago
    the iPad mini it may be mini, but is still expensive, and from my own empirical experience, 9 out of 10 tablets I see in the user hands are cheap $59 devices.
- psbp 13y ago
  I enjoy using my Nexus 7 over my iPad mini and 3rd generation iPad. The apps aren't at parity, but I think the OS is a lot more fluid and easy to navigate.
  - halostatue 13y ago
    My Nexus 7 is sitting in its dock, as it has been for the last six weeks except for maybe a few minutes a week. I bought one of the original 16GB Nexus 7s; the battery life sucks; the responsiveness made my iPhone 3GS running iOS 5 look good. I commonly tell those who ask that the Nexus 7 is one of the worst technology purchases I’ve made in the last ten years (the worst before that would have been the Compaq iPaq in 2001; it didn’t even run Linux very well, although that ran better than WinCE at the time). I use my iPhone in preference to the Nexus 7 for just about everything. I bought a Kobo mini for $50 because the Nexus 7 wasn’t even a good epub reader, and that’s having tried four or five different ebook readers on the Nexus 7. This is anecdotal, but I am not sure whether I’ll ever buy another Android product—regardless of manufacturer—and I say that despite feeling the need to stay on top of available technology from a friend/family recommendation perspective. (That, and I do like gadgets, but I'm much less willing to put up with crap these days.)
benihana 13y ago
Stories like this are interesting me because while sales numbers show Android doing well, usage numbers from all over the internet seem to indicate that not many people are actually using their Android tablets, at least not in the numbers people are using iPads. And then you read the last paragraph and wonder why you just wasted your time with this linkbait article. >And while Android appears to be making headway against Apple and the iPad, the truth is that Apple remains the top selling tablet brand by a huge margin. While Apple sold the aforementioned 14.5 million tablets from April through June, Samsung was the closest competitor to the Cupertino based manufacturer with 8.1 million tablets sold. in the period.
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  > usage numbers from all over the internet seem to indicate that not many people are actually using their Android tablets That's not true. US usage figures don't match up with global sales and people forget there's a big non-US world out there: http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-tablet-usage-browsing-share-region.html http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-tablet-... Also note that usage is a trailing indicator of sales since previously sold devices are still in use.
- slurry 13y ago
  Thunderstorms like this are interesting to me because while surveys of the first two floors show the water rising, an inspection of the attic seems to indicate that not much water has actually come up here yet, at least not more than an inch or two. And then you realize this flooding comes from several different storm systems and wonder why you just wasted your time with this linkbait article.
- sogen 13y ago
  thanks
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
How do I square these numbers with the fact that I've only seen two Android tablets in the field?
- danmaz74 13y ago
  Size of your sample?
- halostatue 13y ago
  I've seen a lot more than that here in Toronto as I'm on transit—but far more often I see either eInk readers (Kobo, Kindle, rarely Sony) or iPads (mini or full-size). In the last few weeks, I think I've actually seen more Playbooks than Android tablets, but that's unusual.
programminggeek 13y ago
Minor point, but from a business perspective, this isn't helping hardware vendors. They are selling a nearly zero margin product. Apple's taking the profits, everyone else is fighting for the leftovers, the unprofitable part of the market. This is to be expected from the flood of $100 Android tablets, but to be honest this isn't hurting Apple, this is hurting Microsoft. Apple has their very profitable segment of the market, Android is taking the low end, and there just isn't much of a place for Windows tablets.
- wybo 13y ago
  It may not be from a business perspective. But in terms of whether the market is working its wonders, I'd say it is perfect. Consumers benefit because there is a lot of fierce competition. Exactly the way it should be for a hardware product like this.
- Touche 13y ago
  It's definitely hurting Apple, their margins are dropping as well. They released the iPad Mini in response to the popularity of smaller tablets and they make less margins on that device. Their sales overall have declined as well: http://www.macworld.com/article/2045056/profits-dip-again-for-apple-while-iphone-sales-beat-record.html http://www.macworld.com/article/2045056/profits-dip-again-fo...

27 points by cwoods 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

melange 13y ago

This makes the front page whereas google being tried for wiretapping does not. No pro google bias here. Move along.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
It's an obvious bum wrap...

devx 13y ago

I'm sure a lot will say now that "It was inevitable. Android is made up of multiple OEM's, yadda, yadda...". But I seem to remember not too long ago that "iPad was the iPod of tablets" or something, and therefore will always have 80+ percent market share. I guess that didn't turn out true.

Touche 13y ago
You're absolutely right. That people could hold these two ideas in their head at the same time still boggles my mind: 1) Tablets are the future of personal computers 2) The tablet market is more like the media player market than the phone market. This was absolutely a popular belief just a couple of years ago, although the people who said this have become quite silent.

Touche 13y ago

Relevant: > I’m not trying to cherry-pick data. I’m simply observing, based on Apple’s sales data and Google’s activation data, that the tablet market doesn’t today look anything like the smartphone market ever did. The iPad didn’t enter the tablet market. It created the tablet market. The iPad’s role in the tablet market much more closely resembles the iPod’s role in the digital music player market a decade ago than it does the iPhone’s role in the 2008 phone market. > http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance > There’s an iPad market, and the iPad could be classified as a tablet, from a hardware-centric viewpoint. But the market for non-iPad tablets is about as big today as it was before the iPad, which isn’t nothing, but it’s close enough to nothing that Apple doesn’t need to worry about it. > http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-tablet-market http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-...

badman_ting 13y ago
Also relevant: the dates of those posts.
- Touche 13y ago
  Those posts were making statements about the future, and both were unequivocally wrong.
  - mamcx 13y ago
    that the tablet market doesn’t today* look anything like the smartphone market ever did. That was correct back then. Also the smartphone market is defined by several competing platforms, form-factors, tech and capabilities. The tablet market is defined by the iPad, and the android trying to be the iPad.
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      That claim was only correct in the US, and while Gruber thinks the US system has unfairly aided Android, it's fairly clear the opposite is true.
      - mamcx 13y ago
        Back them truckloads of tablets worldwide was shipped. But all of them were market failures. Only iPad have traction + mindshare. BTW: "it's fairly clear the opposite is true." The opposite of what?
        ZeroGravitas 13y ago
        No, they were market failures in the US, they've been doing well in Asia especially (as have big Android phones), see my link elsewhere in this thread. This is not particularly unusual, e.g. Xbox vs Playstation sales mix varies by region. And South Korea, Japan and China are now important markets for Android games companies. The "opposite is true" means that it's fairly clear now that the US subsidization model hides the cost differences between phones, and puts an effective floor on prices for handsets, which favors iPhones because they are designed around the American price system. This effect is much less strong or non-existant elsewhere on the planet and Android benefits from the ability to compete fairly on price. Android tablets have followed the same pattern that Android phones followed in these less distorted markets, though slightly faster since Android phones have already created a beachhead.

selectodude 13y ago

Wait, wait. So in a quarter where the newest iPad is 6 months old, there were less iPads sold than every Android tablet manufacturer in the world combined? APPLE IS DOOMED

danmaz74 13y ago
Apple is far from doomed. But those who were saying that Apple would dominate the tablet market forever were wrong. PS please don't answer "but look at the profits". They will come down too, as it's only right in a competitive market.
- aroch 13y ago
  I don't think anyone of note has said Apple will dominate the tablet market forever.
  - ajross 13y ago
    There are quotes from Gruber and Arment elsewhere in this thread that say pretty much exactly that...
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    No, they said there was no such thing as a tablet market, only an iPad market.
  - scholia 13y ago
    "The iPad didn’t enter the tablet market. It created the tablet market. The iPad’s role in the tablet market much more closely resembles the iPod’s role in the digital music player market a decade ago than it does the iPhone’s role in the 2008 phone market." http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance It was a popular meme among Apple fanboys a couple of years ago....
- simonh 13y ago
  You mean how their margins in iPods and phones and desktop computers have .... er ... What was your point again?

Zigurd 13y ago

The tablet market is not like the phone market. In many ways, it will be easier for Android to gain market share, since the channel isn't controlled by carriers in some markets. Any OEM can enter this business, and many many will. Tablets are the post PC device, and the skip-the-PC device. Tablets will be the inexpensive personal internet access device for Asian markets that now rely on internet cafes. Apple will take only the luxury market here, but will make plenty of money at that. Tablets will displace PCs from the desks and especially the non-desk-bound workers in enterprises who can't justify the support costs of a PC. Apple will be a stronger contender here because of their long head start, but Android has some technical advantages as well as cost and choice of OEMs. One thing that's missing is software that takes advantage of tablet power and screen real estate. My prediction is that this will happen first in enterprise software where budgets will support more ambitious software development, and that it's possible it will happen on Android first because it's easier to make a suite of cooperating apps for Android.

laureny 13y ago
> Tablets are the post PC device, and the skip-the-PC device. It really depends what people mean by "post". If it's post as in "will replace", then it's nonsense: laptops and desktops are going to be around for a very long time. If it's "will complement the laptop/desktop market", then I completely agree.
- smtddr 13y ago
  Nah, the only people who actually need a laptop/desktop instead of a tablet+bluetoothKeyboard are people who need a lot more power than tablets can provide today. So that's digital artists, developers with their VMware/VirtualBox/etc and servers. I look to my non-techie dad(though he use to do those punch-card stuff) as an example; got him an iPad and the only thing he misses from his previous laptops is the keyboard. I'm very interested in what other people think about this. Does the general public need anything more than a high-end tablet + bluetooth keyboard? Or maybe, just because some people enjoy a big screen, a tablet with a docking-station providing the keyboard, mouse and big screen?(which is basically a PC, I guess). Some of my coworkers predict a day where smartphones are so powerful, that you'll just put them in a docking-station at work and it'll be just as powerful as a high-end notebook today. Today's consumer laptops/desktop are like Adobe Flash. They're both dead and the tech to replace them exists, we just haven't completely agreed on how to go about it - but they are both definitely dead.

adrianlmm 13y ago

I own an Asus TS300 tablet, and one thing comes to my mind, Android is mediocre, I've tried the iPad and the Surface and their quality is 10 times better, so I presume this numbers are due the cheap $59 tablets that have become popular, but just for the price.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago
The article claims the average selling price of non-iPad tablets (which must be 99% Android) increased by 17%, while the iPad mini pulled the iPad ASP down by the same amount, so your theory is at odds with the facts.
- clarky07 13y ago
  You have to know the real numbers to make that determination. Increased 17% from 100 is 117. iPad decreasing from 550 to 450 (pulled out of my ...) would mean the parent is still right.
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    That's not how averages work. More $59 tablets will only increase the ASP if it's below $59.
- adrianlmm 13y ago
  the iPad mini it may be mini, but is still expensive, and from my own empirical experience, 9 out of 10 tablets I see in the user hands are cheap $59 devices.
psbp 13y ago
I enjoy using my Nexus 7 over my iPad mini and 3rd generation iPad. The apps aren't at parity, but I think the OS is a lot more fluid and easy to navigate.
- halostatue 13y ago
  My Nexus 7 is sitting in its dock, as it has been for the last six weeks except for maybe a few minutes a week. I bought one of the original 16GB Nexus 7s; the battery life sucks; the responsiveness made my iPhone 3GS running iOS 5 look good. I commonly tell those who ask that the Nexus 7 is one of the worst technology purchases I’ve made in the last ten years (the worst before that would have been the Compaq iPaq in 2001; it didn’t even run Linux very well, although that ran better than WinCE at the time). I use my iPhone in preference to the Nexus 7 for just about everything. I bought a Kobo mini for $50 because the Nexus 7 wasn’t even a good epub reader, and that’s having tried four or five different ebook readers on the Nexus 7. This is anecdotal, but I am not sure whether I’ll ever buy another Android product—regardless of manufacturer—and I say that despite feeling the need to stay on top of available technology from a friend/family recommendation perspective. (That, and I do like gadgets, but I'm much less willing to put up with crap these days.)

benihana 13y ago

Stories like this are interesting me because while sales numbers show Android doing well, usage numbers from all over the internet seem to indicate that not many people are actually using their Android tablets, at least not in the numbers people are using iPads. And then you read the last paragraph and wonder why you just wasted your time with this linkbait article. >And while Android appears to be making headway against Apple and the iPad, the truth is that Apple remains the top selling tablet brand by a huge margin. While Apple sold the aforementioned 14.5 million tablets from April through June, Samsung was the closest competitor to the Cupertino based manufacturer with 8.1 million tablets sold. in the period.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago
> usage numbers from all over the internet seem to indicate that not many people are actually using their Android tablets That's not true. US usage figures don't match up with global sales and people forget there's a big non-US world out there: http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-tablet-usage-browsing-share-region.html http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-tablet-... Also note that usage is a trailing indicator of sales since previously sold devices are still in use.
slurry 13y ago
Thunderstorms like this are interesting to me because while surveys of the first two floors show the water rising, an inspection of the attic seems to indicate that not much water has actually come up here yet, at least not more than an inch or two. And then you realize this flooding comes from several different storm systems and wonder why you just wasted your time with this linkbait article.
sogen 13y ago
thanks

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

How do I square these numbers with the fact that I've only seen two Android tablets in the field?

danmaz74 13y ago
Size of your sample?
halostatue 13y ago
I've seen a lot more than that here in Toronto as I'm on transit—but far more often I see either eInk readers (Kobo, Kindle, rarely Sony) or iPads (mini or full-size). In the last few weeks, I think I've actually seen more Playbooks than Android tablets, but that's unusual.

programminggeek 13y ago

Minor point, but from a business perspective, this isn't helping hardware vendors. They are selling a nearly zero margin product. Apple's taking the profits, everyone else is fighting for the leftovers, the unprofitable part of the market. This is to be expected from the flood of $100 Android tablets, but to be honest this isn't hurting Apple, this is hurting Microsoft. Apple has their very profitable segment of the market, Android is taking the low end, and there just isn't much of a place for Windows tablets.

wybo 13y ago
It may not be from a business perspective. But in terms of whether the market is working its wonders, I'd say it is perfect. Consumers benefit because there is a lot of fierce competition. Exactly the way it should be for a hardware product like this.
Touche 13y ago
It's definitely hurting Apple, their margins are dropping as well. They released the iPad Mini in response to the popularity of smaller tablets and they make less margins on that device. Their sales overall have declined as well: http://www.macworld.com/article/2045056/profits-dip-again-for-apple-while-iphone-sales-beat-record.html http://www.macworld.com/article/2045056/profits-dip-again-fo...