Android now has 67% of the worldwide tablet market

Android tablet sales soared in the second quarter, while Apple lost nearly 19% of the market

While Android has been dominating smartphones for at least a couple of years now, I always kind of figured that Apple would be the king when it came to tablets. As someone who generally hates Apple products recently put it to me about the iPad, "They did it first, and they did it best."

But now it looks like Android may have finally found a way to absolutely trounce iOS in this department as well, at least according to new numbers released by Strategy Analytics on Monday.

In the second quarter of 2013, Android completely dominated the devices, with 67% of the global market share, good for 34.6 million units. That is compared to only 28.3% for Apple, or 14.6 million units.

Android also held the lead over iOS in the first quarter, with 51.4% of the global market to 47.2%, but at least it was competitive. Android sold 18.5 million to Apple's 17 million.

So, if are doing the math, Android gained 15.6% of the market, while nearly doubling its units sold.

While the overall market went up 43% to 51.7 million units in Q2 2013, up from 36.1 million in Q2 2012, Apple lost nearly 19% of the market and actually sold fewer units than it did the previous quarter.

"Apple iOS shipments were 14.6 million iPads in Q2 2013 which declined 14 percent annually.  In the same quarter a year ago the first Retina display iPads were launched which could partly explain the decline as there were no new models in this quarter," Peter King, Director of Tablets at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement. 

"However, to compensate that, iPad Mini which was not available a year ago, now freely available was expected to take the figure higher than 14.6 million."  

Meanwhile, as Android and iOS battle for supremacy, another platform is making huge gains: Windows.

Microsoft took in 4.5% of the global tablet share in the quarter, up from a mere 0.5% in the previous quarter. Its units sold jumped from 0.2 to 2.3 million.

So why the big jump? Strategy Analytics attributes it to "savage price cuts by all the partners still involved in the RT Market," including reducing the price of the Surface RT by $150. And while Windows tablets are still expensive they "are much more where they should be to compete."

Despite its gains Windows has a major problem: "the shortage of apps continues to be a problem, with seemingly little incentive for developers to work on the platform."

It seems unlikely, but as Microsoft continues to cut prices, perhaps Windows could eventually be seen as a viable alternative to iOS.

(Image source: https://bigarise.com)