iPad 2 is without a doubt the most popular tablet available on the market at the moment and in recent months the market share of the Apple company's product has registered a 3% increase in the market share against the background of very good sales. 3 months ago the iPad 2 held 65% of the tablet market, but now the market analysis agency called IDC announces that iPad 2 managed to capture another 3% of the market, reaching a share of 68%. This increase comes amid lawsuits between Apple and some of the Android tablet manufacturers, lawsuits that seem to have affected their sales.
Worldwide media tablet shipments in the second quarter were driven by continued robust demand for Apple's iPad 2, which saw shipments reach 9.3 million units, representing a 68.3% share of the worldwide market (up from 65.7% the previous quarter). Research in Motion entered the media tablet market in 2Q11 with its PlayBook product, grabbing a 4.9% share of the market. Apple's strength and RIM's entrance meant bad news for Android-based media tablets, which saw its collective share slip to 26.8%, down from 34.0% the previous quarter.
Apple has a market share over 40% higher than that of all Android tablets available for purchase now, so an Apple product sells almost 3 times better than the entire collection of Android tablets combined. The problem with this study is that it only measures the shipments of tablets delivered by suppliers to retailers, so the actual sales of Android tablets could be lower, as I already found out about Samsung which produced 1 million tablets but sold only 20.000.
In conclusion, iPad 2 is the market leader and until the beginning of next year it seems to be on an upward trend.
