75% of all tablet apps in 2013 will be for the company’s iOS platform, ABI forecasts

Mar 5, 2013 13:24 GMT  ·  By

Google will leave competition in a trail of dust this year in terms of mobile OS market share. But Apple still has the upper hand when it comes to tablet applications, reports ABI research.

ABI says Google’s Android will account for 58% of all mobile OSes this year, with Apple’s iOS coming in second with an annual share of 33%.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone will have a meager 4%, and the beleaguered RIM will see its BlackBerry OS trailing at just 3%.

However, that’s only half of the success story of these giants, particularly when we focus on Apple. According to ABI, mobile users will download roughly 14 billion tablet apps during this year. And most of those will be iPad apps.

“In the tablet segment, iPad’s lead as a development platform remains formidable, as 75% of the amount will be apps running on iOS,” reports ABI.

No surprise there, really. Of the 800,000 iOS apps that run both on iPhone and iPad, around one third are specifically tailored for the latter.

Android will have an annual share of 17%, according to the research firm, which excludes the Kindle Fire.

Senior analyst Aapo Markkanen says, “Arguably the most pressing issue for Google is how much of this handset momentum will ultimately trickle down to tablets, where Apple is holding the fort remarkably well.”