back to article Apple still top for slab-fondlers despite FLOOD of Xmas tablets

Apple is still riding clear at the top of the global tablet market, though it has lost 8 per cent of its share of sales since the same time last year. Its tablet rivals, meanwhile, experienced triple-digit growth compared to the final quarter of 2011. This is according to the latest stats from IDC, which showed Samsung and …

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  1. messele
    FAIL

    Are you really that thick Leach? How can Apple lose 8% when they sold more?

    You know damn well that the market is still expanding and like any expanding market there is lots of room for competition, especially where demand cannot be met as the market is expanding so quickly.

    Your crud is really tiresome.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "How can Apple lose 8% when they sold more?"

      They may have sold more than other manufacturers, Samsung etc. but this is talking about the global market.

      By my admittedly quick adding, the companies listed in the article sold 19m tablets, Apple sold 22.9m, so that leaves the rest of the manufacturers just 3.9m to sell to start eating away at Apple's market share. Now think who's not been mentioned: Motorola, RIM, ViewSonic, Archos, Huawei etc. etc.

      1. PrivateCitizen
        Thumb Up

        Apple sales

        They may have sold more than other manufacturers, Samsung etc. but this is talking about the global market.

        Very true, but I think this is just the sales through outlets and resellers - Apple has a traditionally strong market of direct sales which doesnt get counted in figures like this.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Clearly a case of lies, damn lies and statistics - some very good figures for Apple twisted to make them look bad.

    2. EvilGav 1
      FAIL

      @messele

      Your failure to comprehend statistics is tiresome.

      Apple's share of sales was 52%, it's now 44% so an 8% drop in the share of sales.

      Now, if we were talking about market share and how much that has dropped (which it undoubtedly has), that number is much lower.

      1. ArkhamNative
        Headmaster

        Market Share

        Pedantic note: Market share *is* sales in a given time period. If there are 100M tablets sold prior to Q2, and in Q2 I sell 1M and all others sell 2M, I have a 33% market share for Q2.

      2. messele
        FAIL

        Re: @messele

        ORLY

        If my comprehension skills are lacking perhaps you'd care to explain why Leach has gone back and changed the headlines since I commented...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @messele

          (sigh) Let's give a simple example…

          Last year Apple sold (say) 10 million iPads, and the competition sold 10 million tablets. Total market was 20 million tablets, and Apple's market share was 50%.

          This year Apple sold 16 million iPads, so they sold more. But the competition sold 24 million tablets. Total market is 40 million tablets, and Apple's market share drops 10% to 40% even though they sold 60% more than last year.

          The math is not hard.

          1. Mark .

            Re: @messele

            Interestingly enough, this was the same situation that Nokia went through for years - falling share, but still number one, and actually increasing sales. In some cases, their sales were increasing faster than other platforms in absolute numbers.

            Of course, the media focused on "falling market share" all the years it was Nokia, but you can bet they'll focus on "increasing sales" when it's Apple...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Apple's market share dropped by 8%. FACT.

      The reason why this is important is the same reason why it was important in the 90's when Apple were hemorrhaging market share to Microsoft. If they get relegated to being a niche platform, which they probably will, then more and more developers will develop for Android first, or even exclusively.

      The only advantage iOS still has over Android is their developer community, and that's rapidly changing, and will be lost to them within a couple of years.

      1. toadwarrior
        FAIL

        The advantage apple has is they provide developers superior support and don't break things between versions like google. Which is important since you practically have to suck a whole bag of knobs to get an update for android.

        Even google's own apps apparently rely on 3rd party solutions to handle their breaks. It's a shoddy platform that offers tesco value tools for developers. You get what you pay for and if you want to make money don't try doing things on the cheap.

        1. Armando 123

          Also, ...

          ... Apple's one-stop-shop has its detractors but it has one advantage for developers: piracy. Or rather, prevention thereof. It's much more difficult, though not impossible, to get pirated copies of iOS apps than Android apps, so the developers get paid and keep writing for iOS.

          Market share is important, but profit is more important.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "The only advantage iOS still has over Android is their developer community, and that's rapidly changing, and will be lost to them within a couple of years."

        Doubt it as developers earn money from iOS - far more than Android.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      > "How can Apple lose 8% when they sold more?"

      Paris Hilton agrees whole-heartedly.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Why the obsession with market share

    Seems odd that El Reg is obsessed with market share. If more low end cheap tablets come on the market then you will lose share. But you would have never had those customers to begin with. Share doesn't matter but the number of units you sell does.

    And the market is flooded with low end tablets that are pretty useless. Even places like Next are selling them. Just go on Ebuyer and you can find a tablet for 50 quid. Of course it has a capacitive touch screen so you'd better get out that stylus!

    1. jai

      Re: Why the obsession with market share

      because Anna has an axe to grind and market share is the only stat available that fits her agenda.

    2. Shagbag

      Bring back the O2 Joggler

      Remember that piece of shit?

      1. Joe Harrison

        Re: Bring back the O2 Joggler

        Wash your mouth out the Joggler is a lovely piece of kit - assuming you bought after the reduction from 400 pounds to 50 of course. I have one right now it is my general media control thingy in the kitchen. Very well built with nice solid chrome at the front. None of your creaky thin plastic box like cheapo tablet would have.

    3. EvilGav 1
      FAIL

      Re: Why the obsession with market share

      I think you'll find the super-cheap ones have resistive screens which work with a stylus.

      The shiney iThingies and all the Androids (I think) have capacitive.

    4. Mark .

      Re: Why the obsession with market share

      Regarding share, yes. Everyone was obsessed when Nokia was losing market share, despite increasing sales, too. And this goes for everyone - Samsung, ASUS, even MS, are all making money from extra sales, who cares what the share is. Indeed, the doom and gloom about PCs is stupid, when tablets are being made by PC companies anyway, so it's not like they're losing out.

      "Of course it has a capacitive touch screen so you'd better get out that stylus!"

      Eh? A capacitive screen usually can't be used with a stylus. And neither resistive nor capacitive screens require a stylus. And I'm not sure a £50 tablet is useless - sure, some have low spec like 512MB RAM, but so did an original ipad.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Apple may still be riding clear at the top of the global tablet market"

    Ummm, no. Apple rides high in the US market. In all other international arenas, they often don't even place.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For some strange reason Apple rides high in the UK market as well.

      I think it is largely because the chavs have moved from BlackBerry to iPhone and now all want to carry round an iPad - it fits into their shell suit pockets.

      Personally, I am much happier spending half to one-third that amount of money and getting a device that fully fits all my requirements.

      1. toadwarrior

        Chavs use android because you can only afford a budget turd on benefits.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          iChav

          Chavs use android because you can only afford a budget turd on benefits.

          Yet most chavs seem to be carrying iPhones now.

          Nope. I cant see how they can afford them legitimately either.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Personally, I am much happier spending half to one-third that amount of money and getting a device that fully fits all my requirements."

        Must have set the bar pretty low then. iPad because i'M worth it <lol>

  4. Himalayaman
    Holmes

    Cheap crap sells more? What a shocker.

  5. djstardust
    WTF?

    WTF?

    [i]Cheap crap sells more? What a shocker.[/i]

    Cheap but every bit as capable with higher DPI screen than "retina" and a card slot so you don't get ripped off by Apple's stupid storage price and USB ports on board sells more.

    fixed it for you!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: WTF?

      Higher DPI screen - what's the point. Why not have headphones capable of reproducing sound frequencies no-one can hear = smart?

      1. Mark .

        Re: WTF?

        Because Apple are the ones who claimed unecessarily high "pixel density" the selling point of the ipad. If we agree it's not important, then there are plenty of other tablets to consider too (e.g., Galaxy Note 10.1).

  6. PrivateCitizen
    Linux

    Markets and Growth

    When you are the only person who makes X, you have 100% of the market. You have no way to increase market share and it is only ever going to go down when others come in - every single sale of another brand is a reduction in market share.

    Losing market share in a growing market is not normally a problem for a business, but will still be something Apple needs to keep an eye on. Apart from anything else, people have been crowing about Apple's market share for years.

    More positively, a reduced market share for Apple is probably a good thing (unless they somehow manage to epically fuck things up) as it implies there is enough competition to keep driving improvements and developments.

    The real risk Apple faces is people buying very cheap end devices, getting used to Android (or whatever) and then, when they finally decide its time to spunk out £400 they decide they want to keep to what they know.

    Apple may be relying on the fact cheapo tablets are horrendous to use and will put people off sticking with Android, but this is just as likely going to stop people using tablets at all.

    1. EvilGav 1
      Meh

      Re: Markets and Growth

      At the super-cheap end it's true, they are terrible - if it's < £100.

      But you can get exceptionally good tablets for not much more - the latest Ainol tabs are amazing hard-ware wise and there are enough in that £100-£200 bracket to make your choice almost endless.

      This is where the "benevolent" hand of Google shows just how savvy it is - create an eco-system that any hardware manufacturer can enter for a low entry fee, get the customers on your eco-system and don't care who's hardware they buy, since you make money anyway.

      With Apple, if you don't buy the hardware, you also don't buy the app's, tunes etc etc.

  7. Frankee Llonnygog

    Sales vs shipping (again)

    For the real numbers, wait for the next quarterly financials.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't Apple have more products than last year too

    But less marketshare, in an expanding market...

    Oh dear..... History is repeating itself, Android is killing them in the tablet world, just like it did in the phone world.

    1. PrivateCitizen

      Re: Don't Apple have more products than last year too

      More products can (in some circumstances) be self defeating.

      Apple is slightly cannibalising its own iPad sales as people buy iPad Minis instead but this also opens up the idea that size can be a significant difference and there will be a significant percentage of people who think the iPad mini is too big or too small now.

      Increasing choice like this creates new battleground for competitors to take on Apple - which is a good thing and I think it will be interesting to see how it develops.

    2. toadwarrior
      Trollface

      Re: Don't Apple have more products than last year too

      I'm sure they're wishing they're like HTC or all the other broke ass android sellers.

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. Thatbloke
    FAIL

    Buyer's remorse

    Have you actually looked at the USAGE numbers for those low-priced Asian crappy tablets?

    http://www.asymco.com/2012/11/26/the-android-engagement-paradox/

    People are getting sucked into the "looks like an iPad, must be an iPad, except cheaper". They then get it home and realise it's rubbish.

    Unlike A lot of Reg readers, most of the general public actually want something that works, has an ecosystem of Apps, is upgradeable (OS-wise) and doesn't require a degree to maintain it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Buyer's remorse

      Thats maybe a little harsh.

      I'm sure a significant amount of those buyers are fully aware of the limited use they need a tablet for and the cheaper tablets are fully capable of those needs (basic browsing/movie playing).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Buyer's remorse

      Which is why the buy a Nexus7.....

    3. PrivateCitizen
      Stop

      Re: Buyer's remorse

      I have two iPads (a 1 and a 2), a (now old) Asus eee pad and a Nexus 7.

      Unlike A lot of Reg readers, most of the general public actually want something that works, has an ecosystem of Apps, is upgradeable (OS-wise) and doesn't require a degree to maintain it.

      If you think this doesnt equally apply to android devices as well as the iShiny then you are sorely mistaken.

      Having a majillion apps is irrelevant when ten million of them are variations on notepad, a bajillion are twitter interfaces and another hundred million are just instagram rip offs.

      It doesnt matter how many apps are in the ecosystem - what is important is the app for the things you want to do, and for the majority (not all, by any stretch of the imagination) the core apps most people would use are available on both platforms. People consume content on tablets and phones and most of this content is available via the web (yeah, old fashioned, I know).

      Android upgrades are frequent enough - even the Asus pad gets them, unlike my older iPad which wont let me upgrade the OS.

      None of the devices - iOS or Droid - require any effort or skill to maintain, certainly not a degree. My 8 year old uses the Nexus 7 as if he was born attached to it.

      There is a lot less difference between the devices than people (in either camp) seem willing to admit.

  11. James 51

    One thing holding back the sales of ereaders is their relability and pace of development. I got a Sony ereader three years ago. I have replaced my phone and computer since then but I still have the ereader. There is no compeling features in another ereader that would prompt me to buy a new one. It would take colour eink and epub3 with audio support to do that.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure a lot of people will be buying cheap a$$ Android / other tablets - not using them and buying an iPads next time - certainly more that the vice versa.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reality is look at it by VALUE or PROFIT and then see what the figures look like.

    Would you rather sell 5 tablets and make $10 each with no recurring income or 5 tablets and make $100 each with recurring income from sales of apps and media? The latter is Apple - the former is everyone else - Google are the winners with Android - Samsung will lose out to the next 'best' Android maker - probably Motorola, Sony or even someone like Lenovo.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Market size in <insert universal currency symbol here>

      Interesting point. What was the total amount spent on tablets versus spent on iPads. Unit volume is only one way of measuring market size. There are plenty of others which may not show your favourite ecosystem in such a favourable light.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A lot of the tablets shipped were real cheap Android tat or Amazon heavily locked down ones which may as well not even be Android - Google don't even get to sell the media / apps etc. so must be bit peeved.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most people I know who have bought Android tablets make little use of it's features even this soon after Xmas. Whereas most iPad users make extensive usage - the stats / usage figures bear this out. People are buying stuff like the Kindle Fire as a colour Kindle as they don't realise you can get the Kindle app for iPad.

    I bet the return rate of Android tablets vs iPads is much higher on Android - would be interesting to know.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Erm

      Most people I know who have bought Android tablets make little use of it's features even this soon after Xmas.

      Not sure that makes the sense you want it to make.

      Whereas most iPad users make extensive usage - the stats / usage figures bear this out.

      The people I know and the stats I have contradict you here.

      75% of the people I know who got tablets for Christmas got Android ones, 25% got iPad Minis.

      All of them use their shiny devices to surf the interwebs, access social media, send & read emails, and install apps.

      What is this set of features you think they are not using?

      I bet the return rate of Android tablets vs iPads is much higher on Android - would be interesting to know.

      Bet it isnt.

  16. Mark .

    Android number one, Apple share sliding

    So wait, unless Windows RT has done better than expected in its first quarter, it seems clear that Android is now number one in tablets as well as phones. But this point, and the actual share, is completely absent from the article, instead trying to spin it as being all about Apple!

    I remember how for years the media painted doom and gloom about Nokia, because their market share was falling, and the fact that they were still number one (by company _and_ platform), or their sales were _increasing_, was hardly ever mentioned, with readers misled that Nokia were behind Apple, or that their sales were falling (just see the first comment above, from someone who confuses change in market share, with change in sales).

    Now Apple faces the same situation as Nokia, yet this time, the media harp on about how they're still number one (by company, not platform), and sales are increasing, with the drop in market share a mere footnote. Bias, much?

    What will happen when Apple are no longer the number one company in non-phone tablets? If phones are anything to go by, it'll be "But, the ipad is still the single best selling device". And when they no longer get that, it'll be "But, but, that was only because the ipad sales got split between ipad 4S and ipad 5!"

    (Apple got vast amounts of media coverage even before the first ipad was announced - remember istale? Most people don't even know alternatives exist, but thankfully now that's slowly starting to change. Hell, even now, every other bloody advert is giving free Appleverts; Sky's "Fisherman with ipads" advert plays as I type.)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android number one, Apple share sliding

      You've made this point before (or it was someone else using the same slanted approach) - Apple doesn't just make tablets, which makes slating them as no1 or not no1 a tad complex.

      In addition, Apple doesn't suffer quite the decline that Nokia had because, well, their products are still wanted. Nokia had a UI problem it tried to solve by confusing its developer ecosystem, and so ended up with an end of life problem for its products: it had no follow up. Apple is ahead of the curve, so they can afford to slide into a no2 spot and still sell well because the product's usability and ecosystem is sound.

      However, you are right in asking the "what's next" question because when you're at midpoint you better have something new to show, and so far, Apple has not demonstrated it's still Apple instead of turning into a fruity version of Microsoft which spends most of its time in lawsuits and pretend innovation.

      At least the chair turnover is lower.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Android now king of tablets too

    History has repeated itself, just like android massively outsells iOS in phones, it's now happened with android tablets too.

    http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/technology/mobile/android-tablet-market-share/

    Sure Apple are still the biggest single vendor but iOS now has less market share on tablets than android, and just like phones time will come (soon) when they lose that too, and a single android vendor will outsell them.

    1. DZ-Jay

      Re: Android now king of tablets too

      And they'll still rake in more money than the rest combined.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android now king of tablets too

      Who t believe:

      CNN: "IDC says Android is the new king of tablet market share"

      "Apple's fourth-quarter share of shipments came to 43.6%. It's still the top vendor by a mile, but the the combined market share of Android tablets -- coming from Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), Asus and Samsung, among others -- easily topped 50%."

      El Reg: "Apple still top for slab-fondlers despite FLOOD of Xmas tablets"

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