If you have recently bought an Android tablet in Australia, you have helped the tablets from Google outpace Apple’s iPad growth in the country. Now don’t be shocked; Apple still holds most of the tablet market with a 75 percent share for its iPad tablet but while iPad volumes have doubled from the first quarter to the second, local Android shipments have tripled in the same period, according to market tracker IDC.
Leading the Android pack in Q2 is Acer helping Android tablets score almost all the remaining 25 percent of the market share. A small fraction goes to the newcomer “PlayBook” from RIM, though. And it looks like Android tablets will have sold even more by the end of this year. Out of the 1.3 million tablets expected by the IDC to have made their way into the Australian and New Zealand market, Android sales will be making up about 300,000 of the total.
Overall tablet shipments into the Australian market hit about 368,000 units, which is double the Q1 volume.
So, what’s causing this shift in the tablet market? “The supply-side push from the new Android players in the market, particularly amongst the traditional PC hardware vendors, has caused a large rollout of stock into national retailers to strengthen their brand presence,” said Yee-Kuan Lau, market analyst for IDC A/NZ. “However, at this stage, most vendors were testing the initial market response by introducing WiFi-only models,” she added.
Hmmm…looks like we are headed for some serious competition in the tablet market.
What do you think? Apple or Google, let us know.
