Tablet market share statistics

up, down, up

Gartner have provided updated statistics this month on the market share of tablets.

It’s no surprise that the iPad remains the dominant player having created a market out of very little. In 2010, it had a massive 84 percent of the market worldwide.

However, that figure is predicted to reduce by 15% to 69% in 2011, as a slew of competitors hits the market, led by Android’s Honeycomb release specifically tailored for the tablet. Beyond 2012 the decline is predicted to slow to 63.5% by 2012 and then to 45% by 2015 which would still leave Apple the major player.

The overall market worldwide is 18 million in 2010 and predicted to rise to 70 million in 2011, 108 million in 2012 and a notable 294 million in 2015.

Android has seen incredible growth on Smartphones, but its increase in market share is predicted to be slower – 14% in 2010, with predictions of 20% in 2011, 24% in 2012 and 39% by 2015.

Google is keeping much tighter control of the source code, plus Apple are a release ahead of the other major players having released the iPad 2 while others were just releasing version one. Not to mention its more advanced ecosystem with many, many times more tablet optimised apps available.

Android does, however, have several interesting features through its familiar use of widgets, more flexible settings and less interruptive notifications with pop-ups rather than the overlays.

Update: for more recent figures visit the following site for tablet market share.