14 DAY TRIAL // The tablet market is growing, to the point where notebooks might be outsold this year (2013), despite setbacks like a 20-30% fall in Q2 2013.
ABI Research has now shared its prediction for the year: Apple will finally be outsold by makers of Android tablets.
Which is to say, the company will end the year with even less than the 50% of the slate market it had in 2012.
Then again, it says something that it took so long for a whole mass of companies to catch up to a single one. There are quite a few makers of Android slates after all, and Apple has been alone with the iPad since the slate market came to be.
The inventions of sub-$200 / €200 slates has a lot to do with the tipping scales.
“It’s inevitable that Android tablets will overtake iOS-powered slates, though we see no single vendor challenging Apple’s dominance anytime soon,” says senior practice director Jeff Orr. “With media tablets commercially available for more than 4 years, momentum is shifting toward value and affordability, putting tablets in more of the population’s reach.”