Global Android tablet shipments increase 177%

The other two big operating systems (and their respective eco-systems) in the global tablet market are Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT. Apple still leads the race with a 48 percent market share, while Microsoft has managed to go from nothing (since Windows 8 RT is its first real tablet OS) to a 7.5 percent market share by selling some 3 million Windows based tablets.

“Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong… Android captured a record 43 percent share of global branded tablet shipments in Q1 2013, rising from 34 percent a year earlier,” said Peter King, Director of Tablets at Strategy Analytics.

The data is for “Branded” tablets but if “White-Box” (read Chinese) tablets are added to the total numbers then Android’s market share jumps to 52% and iOS slips to 41%, as the bulk of the White-Box tablets use Android.

Although Microsoft now has a 7.5 percent share of the market, the report says that Microsoft has had distribution problems coupled with a shortage of top tier apps. There is also confusion among consumers about the differences between Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT meaning that Microsoft’s overall shipments were low.

This was the first full quarter of iPad mini sales and in total Apple managed to ship 19.5 million iPads (as a mixture of iPad 2, iPad and iPad mini). During the same quarter last year Apple shipped 11.8 million units.