Android tops tablet sales for first time
Google operating system grabs 62% market share for tablets sold in 2013, almost double that of Appleâs iOS
Googleâs Android operating system overtook Appleâs iOS for the first time as it grabbed a 62% share of the total tablet sales in 2013, , according to new research compiled by IT research firm Gartner.
Of the 195m tablets sold over the course of last year the Android operating system powered 121 million of them, almost double the 70m tablets Apple sold throughout 2013.
The figure was 128% up on the 53m Android-powered units sold throughout 2012, and Apple reported a far more modest year-on-year increase of 15%.
Gartner attributed the change to a rise in the number of first-time buyers looking for low-end, small-screen tablets with a number of manufacturers of such devices recording large sales spikes.
While Apple remained the most popular tablet vendor and sold almost double that of nearest rival Samsung, the number of tablets sold by manufacturers other than Apple, Samsung, ASUS, Amazon and Lenovo doubled to more than 60 million units.
Lenovo most notably saw sales grow 198% year-on-year and snatched a 3.3% market share of the vendor market, with Gartner also noting this to have boosted Microsoftâs operating software market share.
Microsoft managed to double its market share over the year to 2.1%, affirming its status as the third-largest mobile OS on the platform.