iPad versus Android tablet market share

There have been a slew of iPad competitors coming onto the market from the likes of Motorola, Samsung, Research in Motion (Blackberry) and HP.

But how much impact will these tablets have on the iPad’s dominant market share? Research from Gartner provides useful historical data and some considered predictions about how this fast growing market may develop.

First the history. 2010 saw nearly 18m tablet sales with Apple’s iPad a dominant 83.9% of the market – unsurprisingly given they effectively created this category.

Going forward the tablet market is set to rocket, again with iPad and iPad 2 dominant at 68.7% of the market, but starting to come under pressure as with the Smartphone market from Android and Blackberry competitors.

From there the numbers require a larger pinch of salt given the slew of inaccurate predictions we saw ahead of the iPad’s launch. However, by 2015 Gartner predicts that Apple’s market share will be under 50% as Android’s growth impacts its dominant position, plus competition from Blackberry’s QNX operating system, in a hugely expanded overall category with nearly 300m sales.