Android is taking a chunk out of Apple’s tablet dominance, and Apple saw its market share slip more than 15% in Q3 2012, according to IDC. The biggest factor in the slip was Android tablets from Samsung and Amazon. Sure, they may still hold 50.4% of the market, but it’s still a downward slide from where it was.
Samsung’s year over year market share increased 325%. In Q3 last year, Samsung had 6.5% market share and this year it jumped to 18.4% in Q3. In Q2 2012 Samsung also saw an impressive 115% increase. That’s good enough to put Samsung in second place on the IDC’s global leaderboard for tablets.
Of course, it wasn’t just Samsung who took the bite into Apple, Amazon also had a part. The Kindle fire HD lineup moved Amazon to third place. Asus came in at fourth place, with Google’s Nexus seven being its push.
The buildup to the iPad mini could explain why people were not purchasing as many iPads. However, the high price point for the iPad mini compared to Android tablets puts Android in a great position. Either way, it looks like Apple needs to watch its back because Android is coming for them. With Google launching the 16GB Nexus 7 for the same price as the previous 8GB model, they are poised and ready to take some of that market share.
[via SlashGear]
