iPad Might Lose Half Tablet Market to Android [Study]

After the launch of Android Honeycomb tablets which was developed in what seemed to be a hurry, manufacturers like Motorola and HTC have been trying to enter the market with tablets that are extremely costly, even more than the iPads of that time. In their haste to launch Honeycomb and the expensive tablets, it seemed like all the companies involved forgot that there were not enough tablet-optimized applications to sustain the ecosystem out there.

To price an Android tablet at the same level as any of the iPads would not be the right thing to do and here’s why. Apple has been getting its developers to maintain a healthy ecosystem filled with apps that are meant for tablets and not just stretched to fit the screen. Even if many of the Android tablets had hardware specifications that beat that of the iPad, it still wasn’t offering enough for most people to choose it over the iPad.

Now that some time has passed however, it seems that Android tablet manufacturers are getting their act together and repositioned their market. Inexpensive tablets such as the Kindle are starting to gain market share and are only a good effort away from taking half the tablet market share from the iPad. A study that was conducted on this very phenomenon shows that a little more than a year ago, the iPad held a massive 95% of the tablet market. Now however, it has only 55%. Android tablets have notched up 42% of the market share from a mere 12% which was where it was only 6 months ago.

In order to clarify, this does not mean that the iPad with its latest installment hitting amazing new sales digits is selling less. On the contrary, it’s selling more than ever but Android tablets seem to be selling even faster and therefore grabbing the iPad’s market share away little by little. If the Android ecosystem wants to prolong this struggle for the gain of market share, a lot of it would depend on Google’s Play Store and the developers involved.

While the store does only show apps that are compatible with your device, it doesn’t highlight which apps are meant for tablets and which are not. The tablet race seems to be hotting up with a variety of new tablets on their way but with rumors of a cheaper “iPad Mini” circulating the interweb, Android tablet manufacturers had better start strategizing about how to hold on or increase the market share they have all worked so hard to achieve.