Worldwide sales of tablets reached 195.4 million units in 2013, a 68 per cent increase on 2012, according to Gartner.
Growth was fueled by low-end tablets with smaller screens and first-time buyers that helped grow Android’s share of the market to 61.9 per cent of unit sales, from 45.8 per cent in 2012.
Apple’s iPad fell to 36 per cent from 52.8 per cent, despite growing sales to over 70 million units, it said, adding that Microsoft doubled its market share, to 2.1 per cent or just over four million Windows tablets sold, from one per cent in 2012.
From a brand perspective, Apple remained the top vendor in 2013 with a 36.0 per cent share of sales. Samsung was second, more than doubling its share to 19.1 per cent, followed by Asus with 5.6 per cent and Amazon with 4.8 per cent. Lenovo ranked fifth with 3.3 per cent of the market or 6.5 million tablets sold.
Gartner’s figures are part of broader research into the ultramobiles market, which also includes hybrid and clamshell laptops with tablets as screens. Tablets made up 90 per cent of the 216 million ultramobile devices sold last year, but the hybrid laptop grew faster, helped by the addition of a keyboard to improve productivity. Asus was the top manufacturer in the hybrid category, led by its Transformer Book T100.