A new tipping point in the world of tablets: today the analysts at Gartner have released their tablet sales numbers for 2013, and Android has topped the list for the most popular platform for the first time, outselling Apple’s range of iPad tablets nearly twofold. Of the 195 million tablets sold in 2013, Android took nearly 62% of sales on 121 million tablets, while Apple sold 70 million iPad tablets for a 36% share.
In comparison, last year, Apple led the tablet category with nearly 53% of sales on 61 million units, compared to Android at nearly 46% with 53 million tablets sold.
This was always inevitable. Apple won’t mind though – they’re still raking in the profits.
Something I always keep in mind when seeing this kind of statistic is that Apple is one company. There are hundreds of Android device manufacturers, especially if you consider all the cheap no-name tablets coming out of China. But even if you only count the top ten Android tablet makers, that’s still ten companies it took to outsell one company.
Not that I’m a fan of the iPad; my wife had a first gen iPad and while it was nice enough for what it was, the Android tablets that came out soon after were much more versatile. I don’t like Android on phones but I think it’s a perfect fit for tablets, where the OS doesn’t have to deal with mission critical stuff like phone calls and SMS. But anyway, the reason Apple is raking in the profits is obvious: They control the hardware and software, and have such a limited number of SKUs at any one time. When you’re the only iOS tablet maker, you can price it how you want.
That doesn’t work for phones, though; Samsung is crushing everyone to an almost Microsoftian extent.
It seems as though they may do the same with tablets soon enough; 19% Samsung, 36% Apple, and they’re most likely only going to get bigger due to the note series eating into enterprise sales.
At this point, Samsung is pretty much the only company making high-end Android tablets. Most of the other ones are only decent at best, including the Nexus 7 Bezel Edition.
Actually most of Samsung’s “tabs” are very low end in specs. Even the Last year’s Note 10.1 was pretty weak in specs. Nexus 10 and Asus transformer were really the highest spec tablets last year. With the success of the NExus 7 everyone shot for low end it seems.
Now we have the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, the Galaxy Tab Pros (which are gimped at 16gb but still good tablets), and the Tegra 4-based Asus Transformer… which, if it’s as unreliable as previous models, is probably not worth your time.
And, well… that’s about it, I think. The rest are mid-range at best.
…and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you price yourself out of a market.
Apple sold 61 million iPad in 2012 and 70 million in 2013… of course they’re pricing themselves out of this market.
Apple’s sales grow slower then overall sales. If this is not “pricing themselves out of this market”, then what is?
Being choosy whilst the market expands to include people Apple isn’t so interested in is what it is.
The resort may be expanding to let in the great unwashed, but Apple’s club-reps still have their over-expensive towels on all the best pool-side loungers.
Edited 2014-03-03 17:58 UTC
One could argue it is just a polite way of saying “getting obsolete”.
Shrinking market share and healthy market position don’t go together, and long-outdated argument about Apple’s superiority quality-wise doesn’t change this.
I suppose it depends on how important you think the market will be in the long term. I still can’t bring myself to take this breed of consume-only tablets seriously as computers rather than faddish gadgets.
Know anyone who still thinks Casio are well placed as a leading technology company because of their domination the digital watch market?
Caveat lector; I’m usually wrong on such things.
The technology in the high end Casio watches is staggering – up five fully independent micro-stepper motors, 1/1000th second mechanical stopwatch, solar charging, automatic atomic clock synchronisation etc, etc.
http://edifice.casio.com/technology
You could also call it avoiding the inevitable race to the bottom.
At some point, Android phones are going to become truly commodity with no differentiation between them at all. The reason this will happen is that at some point, economies of scale will force manufacturers to choose exactly the same components (processors, memory and screens) as their competitors. It will become too expensive to invest in a differentiated Android phone where the market only cares about price.
apple will settle to something like 10-20% of the market, selling phones and tablets with a higher ASP, much better margins, and the Android market will slowly consolidate into a few top players, all of whom will eke out relatively small profits (unless they find an effective way to collude). Essentially, what happened to the PC market will happen to the Android market.
Samsung’s efforts with Tizen etc are to try and avoid the inevitable commmoditisation of the Android phone, but they are not getting any traction.
This is nonsense. The best selling phones of the last two years have been Samsung’s flagship models. The mobile phone market will never be one where people only care about price.
Actually if you look at Samsung’s numbers last year their flag ship phones have stalled as with their earnings.
In Android land the majority of the devices selling are cheap phones.
And yet, actually the best selling smartphone of 2014 was the Galaxy S4, ffs.
LOL!
Non sequitur. Samsung flagship phone are outselling the iPhone, but they are cheaper as well. Now, £100 may not sound like much when you are selling so many more phones, but fro ma profitability angle, it is a lot. If Apple is making £300 profit per phone, by selling for £100 less, Samsung will be making about £200 (all other things equal). So Samsung has to sell 3 phone for every 2 Apple does, just to keep up. As the prices are inevitably pushed down towards the manufacturing cost, Samsung will make lower profits, and it will become even harder to differentiate themselves. They will end up competing on price. Happened with PCs, will happen with smartphones. Check this out:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-smartphone-profit-share-2014-2
In fact, the S5 is cheaper at launch than the S4, in part because customer can choose other Android devices. It’s basic, non controversial economics this.
Same thing happened with PCs, where Macs tend ot be more high end and more expensive, in part due to the fact that if you want a Mac, you get an Apple.
If I want an Android phone, I can get:
– a Samsung
– a Motorola
– a Nokia
– an HTC
– a Huawei
– a Sony
– an LG
and others I haven’t bothered to list.
We have these things called present and future which are distinctly different from the past.
An old investment saying:
Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results.
Plenty of companies were incredibly profitable just before they went broke.
Even BMW is now introducing cheaper, high volume, front wheel drive models to stay relevant.
Basing an comparison of today’s products on a first-gen product from 5 years ago is hardly fair, but you are correct, with dozens of manufacturers, some putting out complete crap while some put out decent devices, it is not a surprise the total output will outsell Apple at some point.
I have tried the first-gen Nexus 7 and last year’s Samsung Galaxy Tab 7. Both were decent, the Nexus 7 was quite underpowered but I’m sure they have fixed that problem (See, I didn’t dismiss today’s Nexus 7 just because the first one they made wasn’t great). The Samsung tablet had a horrible screen with very visible pixels and was quite heavy compared with my iPad Mini.
Then there is Android. I just cannot abide expanded phone apps on a tablet, and there are WAY too many of those on the Android platform. The general quality, look, design, feel, and innovation of usability of Android apps just is not there compared to iOS. I am not one of those who has to change everything about the look and operation of all my devices, so being able to change the icons, launcher, and everything about the device out of the box does nothing for me.
There are some really nice Android tablets out there, but they are still saddled with versions of Android that may never be updated or are quite outdated to begin with, expanded phone apps and apps that just don’t have the panache that iOS apps do. That may change enough to get me to switch at some point, but not yet.
Actually I didn’t do that, I’m sorry if you inferred that. I probably could have worded it better. This is what I said:
“…the Android tablets that came out soon after were much more versatile”
I should have said “a few months after” for more clarity.
The iPad hasn’t changed all that much on the software side, until iOS 7. The hardware has vastly improved though; a friend has an iPad Air and it’s a remarkable piece of hardware. I’m not a fan of iOS 7; I like the look of it but it seems like it makes even less organizational sense than previous versions. I still think modern Android tablets offer better value than the iPad, but it’s hard to ignore that sweet Apple design.
I’d love a tablet with the exact same hardware as the iPad Air (ok, throw in an SD slot if it’s not too much to ask) running stock Android instead. I must be really weird, because there’s not a single Android manufacturing willing to offer something like it.
Yes, but from the perspective of an application developer, who cares?
From the perspective of the application developer I’m not so interested in what OS have the largest market share. To me, it is more important that the users of the OS I develop for are willing to spend money on apps. So far iOS users spend about three times as much money on the apps I have developed as Android users.
The typical Android app business model is to give away the app for free and generate revenue by advertising or in-app purchases.
To quote former Chinese leader Deng Xiopeng:
‘Black cat or white cat…it doesn’t matter as long as it catches mice.’
What if I have a mostly white cat, with a black tail and a patch on its head?
Well considering this is OS News, not a hardware site, it makes sense for the articles and writing to address the issue from an OS vs OS angle.
Being the strongest lion in the jungle is only a benefit when your competition is limited to other individual lions. Not so when you’re a single lion facing a pack of wolves that both outnumber you and who are essentially united against you.
My son uses my first gen iPad, it still works fine.
I got myself an iPad Air and I’m waiting for my Dell Venue Pro 11 to arrive.
The only Android tables I have spotted were sitting on shelves and most looked like toys. Most aren’t any good and I suspect people with little knowledge in to the matter buy them, use them and then put them up for sale or in the bottom drawer.
I’ve had a few Android tablets now, and yes, most of them are pretty crap, even some of the more ‘premium’ ones. The Honeycomb ones and everything before had some pretty bad flaws (built in web browser was rubbish, and could not run Chrome).
These days they’re OK, still obviously lack the polish of the iOS devices, and I think that will continue, as there is no desire to change.
As a developer I very much value being able to install whatever I like, and for that reason, rather like Android for tablets.
I agree with the comment above though that Android is much nicer for tablets than phones. I’ve never had an Android phone I liked, not once.
iPad’s are expensive toys too. iPad’s and iOS are not good either. I have quite a few friends that used to have iPad’s and iPhone’s and switched to Android powered tablets / phones and will never look back.
I think most tablets and even smart phone to a large extend are luxury items and thus could be described as toys.
But in The Netherlands if you visit a toy store you are very likely to find some cheap Android tablets. These tablets have kids as their target audience. Even in more serious stores most Android tablets seem to be targeting kids, while Windows tablets are more appealing to serious users.
I wonder how the Apple brigade is going to spin this bit of news now.
i don’t think there is a need to defend it as although android is beating Apple in market share (which was inevitable) the core difference between the Windows / Mac os the late 80’s early 90’s is that Apple is still making stacks and stacks of cash.
It is still important to note that apple is still selling more and more of these devices every year and pulling in massive profits because of it.
What we’re really seeing is that the tablet market is being spaced out, we will likely see a plateu in the future but at the moment the market is still expanding.
I own all three major OS tablets, i own an iPad3 which is still really quick and powerful for my uses, plays HD content without a stammer and all apps run fine (evernote), the only reason i would upgrade to an iPad Air is if i still traveled a lot as the air is a lot lighter than the iPad3 which makes a difference in your bag.
They do make an insane amount of money, making me wonder why they just don’t lower the prices somewhat.
A lot of money is made selling apps and content, so why not make some less on the hardware sales, but make more selling content and use those numbers to get even more content providers.
THIS! Apple makes so much money as a content provider that they could easily afford a small cut in their hardware profits just to get more units out there to improve their marketshare and generate even more recurring business.
They can rest in their laurels for now but how long before their hardware competitors start striking deals with content providers (Amazon, recording companies, broadcasting networks, book publishers, etc.) just to sweeten their pill?
Marketshare is an important metric if they are to stay in the game for the long run.
Possibly (this is a largely uneducated guess) because they aren’t interested in the market in the long term. Maybe their interest finishes in the medium term.
Get to the most profitable position, squeeze as much money out of that as they can, use their newly embiggened war chest to fund the next profitable venture, meanwhile let the old venture fade away quietly like the iPod.
Thom is fond of saying on this site that the only thing that matters to a company is profit. I think they are also motivated by the company’s managers and other employees seeking a sense of purpose and progress. Neither of those goals are necessarily met just by dominating a specific market.
Yes, market share isn’t that important now as their smaller share brings in the bulk of the profits, but when it becomes easier to buy content from other sources then marketshare does become important.
Apple has shown marketshare means nothing for profits, but if you make so much money why not get the profits AND the marketshare. If they take a small hit on hardware they’d still make a lot of money from sales, but they’d make more and more selling media, apps.
With a high(er) marketshare iOS would be the place to be for anyone looking to sell their stuff.
It already seems Apple can’t find ways to get rid of their money so why not make people happy that can’f afford their stuff right now?
I agree with you to some extent. Apple is still raking the profits for the time being. But some people on this site and elsewhere are known for disregarding Android’s market/mind share completely as if it do not matter in the long term game.
As the article accurately points out, the people for whom the brand on their devices matter pretty much got one already and are probably going to upgrade it next year at best because they’re faithful to the brand – which is something that Apple cultivates and do it very well – so there is some recurring business potential in there.
For everybody else, who are more likely to be a little more price sensitive and I’d hazard to count as the majority, Android different devices, form factors and features probably makes more sense. And in the end, strong ecosystems will be a cause of network effect.
We’re already seeing it happening in front of our very eyes as we speak. Even Apple itself sees it: the iPad mini clearly was a reaction to that.
The US and European markets are mature already. The growth will be in developing markets such as Asia, Russia and Latin America which are all markets being targetted by Apple’s competitors.
And the days that only Apple came out with the good stuff whilst everybody else was putting out crappy devices are long gone.
I believe that what will keep Apple afloat for some time is the fact that its users are not averse to spend some money but that is not enough to sustain a healthy business for them if their marketshare continues to slip at this pace just like it happened back in the 80’s and 90’s.
Which is the analogy I was getting at and hence as I said before, history has a funny way of repeating itself.
I wonder how the Android brigade still consider overall platform market share as a meaningful metric to “prove” that Apple is doomed.
There is nothing to spin here: Android is winning on the volume sales worldwide and Apple is winning everywhere else: profit, usage share, mindshare etc.
I think Apple and the Apple brigade is fine with that.
Edited 2014-03-03 13:57 UTC
Profit yes, usage share and mind share…not really.
I am inherently suspicious of these sorts of reports because I ask myself where does the data comes from given that the only large tablet maker to release regular and reliable sales figures is Apple (see note below). What is being counted, by whom and how?
But even if we take this at face value I wonder why such a metric matters? The quantity and quality of software, peripherals and add ons for iOS tablets is many, many times that of Android tablets. Apple takes almost all the tablet profits. iOS is easily the dominant corporate IT tablet solution. So why does market share matter?
The tired and thought free cliche of “it’s just like Mac versus Windows” all over again seems to only work if you ignore actual history and rely instead on a mythical history, and if you think against all the evidence that the dynamics of the mobile device business is similar to the dynamics of the PC business. There is not the slightest chance that in the foreseeable future Apple’s iPad business will suffer any sort of serious decline or that iOS users will suffer any sort disadvantage form being on the ‘minority’ platform (at the moment of course all the platform advantages, such as they are, accrue to iOS users).
Note: Before Thom pips in with the standard ‘Apple’s figures are just for units shipped like everyone else’s’ retort to any comment about the failure of everyone else to publish actual regular sales figures I would like to point out that if a company such as Apple publishes regularly every quarter reliable, audit and SEC compliant sales figures then any channel stuffing (which would cause units shipped to exceed units actually sold) will be irrelevant over time. There is only so many units that can be stuffed into a channel before you have start selling some at the other end or just fill the channels up. On the other hand channel stuffing works very well if you only report intermittent sales figures at self chosen moments (“X million sold in first three months†type click bait) because then stuffing channels can generate a momentarily blip in the total units.
If, after years and years of Android growth, in a bad economy, you still think there is ANY channel stuffing going on AT ALL, you have absolutely no idea how the retail industry works.
As simple as that.
I never said I thought channel stuffing was going on. I said that whenever I have mentioned in the past the fact that Apple alone of the large device makers releases regular and reliable sales figures and lamented the fact that other companies do not you have responded by saying Apples sales figures were based on units shipped, etc, etc and suggested their sales dat was as unreliable as the other big players. So my note was meant to point out that releasing regular and SEC approved figures means that Apple cannot stuff channels and that therefore the difference between units shipped and units sold is moot in the case of Apple because the two figures will quickly converge over a short period of time. All the other companies release figures intermittently timed mostly to support PR related schedules and in that case channel stuffing would work. I did not say it takes place (although I would be very unsurprised to learn that sometimes it did) and frankly I don’t care.
What I do care about is good data because without good data it is impossible to find out what is actually going on in the world. I am not sure whether the Gartner report contains good data because I could not find any information about their data gathering methodology, but I didn’t dig that deep so if any one else can find out anything about Gartner’s data gathering methodology that would be very useful.
In the end does any of this matter much? Market share is uncoupled from any direct and simple link to platform health in the mobile world, although of course it is a factor, but just one among many and it’s not the most important. The drivers of platform health in the mobile world seem quite diverse and complex.
Except – I have never made such claims. You’re twisting my words to fit your narrative – as always. I have only pointed out in the past that Apple does not report units sold – only shipped, like every other company. I have never made any claims about reliability of said figures, because I am not qualified to do so.
Neither are you, I might add.
But that’s not right is it? Apple’s reporting of it’s device business performance is unlike almost any other major company in the mobile device market. It actually makes public precise and regular figures every quarter broken down by device category and these are known to be accurate because they form part of Apple’s legal submission to the Securities Control Commission. As I explained because those Apple’s reports are regular like clock work the difference between shipped and sold is meaningless as you well know.
Most Android tablet makers do not publish regular figures on tablets sold or shipped every quarter. Data about the number of Android tablets being sold is mostly based on estimates using proxy data (surveys of channels etc). Those estimates might be very good, Gartner’s report might be very good, but without knowing the source of the data I view such reports as broad indicators.
I think that if you include every Android non-phone touch screen device being sold then it is very likely that more are being sold than the number of iPads being sold. So what? that’s a meaningless metric as it does not seem to form the basis for any reasonable conclusion about the dynamics and relatives strengths and weaknesses of the various tablet platforms. As far as I can see the Android tablet platform is feeble and selling lots of units obviously doesn’t seem to help.
Except, it is. go read Apple’s SEC filings. They specifically redefine “shipped” into “sold”. So yes, Apple reports units “shipped”, not “sold”.
Whether or not they’re more accurate than the figures other companies report – I cannot tell. Neither can you, might I add (again).
Jeez Thom – you really can be pedantic sometimes. I just explained why in the context of Apple making regular reports to a fixed schedule there is absolutely no difference between shipped and sold. Its a tangential issue of no consequence.
Instead of your bizarre focus on the shipped/sold issue surely the key point is that we know really a lot more about Apple’s tablet business than for example Samsung’s or Google’s.
How many Nexus 7 has Google sold in the last few quarters? How many tablets have Samsung sold each quarter since it launched the first Tab? can you build a graph based on actual of performance of the tablet sales of the top ten Android tablet makers showing the trajectory of sales figures based on data released by those companies? The answer to all those is no.
You force me to, because you constantly accuse me of making claims I never made and saying things I never said. So yes, I will damn well be pedantic with you to avoid giving you even more words to twist and turn to fit your narrative.
Who started this whole thing? Surely, it was you? Who has the bizarre focus here? You even named me specifically!
We most likely do, yes. I never contested as such. You CLAIMED I contested it so you could set up a strawman, but I never actually made any such claims.
Except, of course, when Apple comes out on top – at which point everything is magically accurate. Funny how that works.
The short answer to your comment can be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge‘s_law_of_headlines
Well, from 61 Millions last year, to 70 Millions this year ? Does that look like an halted growth for Apple ?
In a market which routinely provides triple digit annual growth figures, this is a much bigger reason to worry than the increased market share of Android.
A Casio watch for $30 probably keeps better time than a Rolex, any canvas bag will carry things just as well as a Louis Vuitton, a Honda Civic will get the same job done as a Mercedes C class. Rolex, LV and Mercedes are doing just fine. Apple will be ok too.
I’m sorry, but Apple are Top Shop – expensive considering, but absolutely mainstream and certainly not any sort of premium luxury brand.
That must be why the are voted the world’s most valuable brand.
They’re a high street brand. The idea that they’re some sort of luxury boutique brand is, frankly, laughable.
Apple has managed to build a premium brand with mass appeal. Very rarely done and a way to print money when done as well as they have.
So we agree then that they’re not a luxury brand such as Rolex, or Louis Vuitton, as was originally suggested? Mass-market high street goods, a large proportion of which are sold on hire-purchase contracts, are not many people’s definition of a luxury brand, I would suggest…
But passenger cars are only a side-business for Mercedes (actually, Daimler) – they live mostly on trucks, vans, and industrial engines.
I have tried many Android tablets and all they looked a bit messy for me. Samsung top tablets are laggy – yes, swiping and clicking is quote choppy everywhere. Even these vanilla androids lag on tablets. iPads somehow mastered the interface and whole experience – it’s much better. Also app support. For example there are ton’s of professional grade music applications, synthesizers for iPad. Sound hardware vendors are making remote controller apps for iPad only, for example Allen & Heath digital mixers.
Did you guys happen to see the new Samsung 8.4 tablet?
Was in Best Buy yesterday and it has to be the best tablet I ever used.
The processor is a monster for the device and for the kinds of development work I do, systems management, the screen is the perfect size for your “infrastructure pad” system I am developing.
I also dumped my cell service, and use IP phone, which a good processor and a good WiFi radio is key.
The thing comes with 802.11ac, so that should really work well in my office where I plan on updating to ac this summer.
But all in all, the only thing I am missing on the thing is a removable battery and Cyanogenmod.
I wish they would use a removable batter as I am not gung ho on thin-ness, I really just want a tablet of this size for staying power and push button infrastructure use.
How Android numbers are counted if no Android companies give actual numbers? Especially Samsung who is getting all the credit.
I also want to know why they are off on Apples numbers by almost 5 million units.
Also how many of the Android devices are actually sales to consumers, not sales into the channel.
I mean if the sales are real then they are real but “Activations” are not sales, nor are guessed sales or channel sales.
While “Activations” are not sales, they are a reasonably accurate portrayal of new devices coming on the market. The number of people who do such a thorough reset that they would be re-activating a device is probably far less than 1%. Only hobbyists would be doing it on a regular basis. Tablets are cheap enough that if one that is more than 18 months fails, the more economic use of one’s time is to simply buy a new one.
I would think that Activations would be more then 1% because that does not take into account for people upgrading to new phones and selling or giving away the old. Replacement phones and refurbished phones.
My other argument here is that they got Apples numbers wrong by almost 5 million and the bulk of the Android sales are from no name companies that no one seems to be able to put a finger on but Gartner.
1. Looking at Table 2, the sales of Android devices in the “Other” category exceeds the combined sales of Samsung, ASUS and Amazon.
2. Apple’s sales as reported by Gartner’s differs from the company’s own numbers
Yes, for some weird reason Gartner posts 70 million sold in Q4, while Apple’s SEC filing shows 74 million.
Also, for some other weird reason they include those Android TV dongles in the numbers, weird they would consider that a tablet, but I guess anything to inflate the numbers and get the people clicking on the article.
This is the same company that said Microsoft would be making a killing in tablets and phones too.
Of course Apple will mind, they have a very dangerous competitor that once again is threatening them directly on one of their few SKUs with a proven track-record. Have you checked Google’s market capitalization recently? It’s climbing incredibly quickly and now stands a whopping $90B above Microsoft and just $60B shy of Apple. This is a stark change over the last year, where Apple’s lead was far more dramatic and the disparity between Microsoft’s market-cap was far less pronounced.
In the game of investor confidence, this win is significant.
And it’s far from over. Google’s Android is poised to move into the home with the so-called internet-of-things — a multitude of devices and appliances that are connected. The competition is not. Android is also going to wearables and vehicles. There is limited movement by the competition in this regard. And Chrome OS is continuing to pick up steam and further encroaching on the traditional laptop markets historical leaders. I wouldn’t be surprised to read a future headline that ChromeOS had become the dominant laptop platform.
Say what you want to praise Apple but Google’s strategy is proving to be more successful in the marketplace.
Edited 2014-03-04 16:54 UTC