14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has many followers, so it stands to reason that there will be many people saying that there is no way the iPad will ever stop being number one in terms of sales, but J. Gold Associates disagrees.
These days, Apple's iPad is constantly being pitted against the entirety of the Android tablet crowd.
Of course, considering that its sales levels are a lot higher than theirs, this was to be expected.
Perhaps in some distant future there will be one or two tablets that will rival Apple's item on their own.
That future isn't anywhere near, however, though at least the one where iPad no longer controls more than half the market could be just around the corner.
According to Jack Gold, from J. Gold Associates, Android slates might exceed the iPad in sales as soon as three years from now.
More precisely, by the 2014-2015 period, the iPad will have declined to a 30% share of the slate industry.
Meanwhile, Android models will have 50%, while the remaining 10% will be left to Windows tablets.
“By 2014-15 we expect Android tablets to acquire a majority share of the consumer market as the number of vendors and variety of models overwhelm the iPad,” Gold wrote.
“But iPad will continue to hold the largest share of the enterprise market where specialized features built into some Android tablets will be valued but which will take longer to gain share.”
Naturally, people shouldn't be hasty in assuming this outcome to be the most likely.
After all, even if Apple's iPad does end up overtaken, there is no telling how Windows slates will progress.
Windows 8 will support the ARM architecture after all, so it could become quite the opponent to both Android and iOS. In the end, time will be the judge of everything.