Worldwide sales of tablets reached 195.4 million units in 2013, a 68 percent increase on 2012, according to Gartner. Growth was fueled by low-end tablets with smaller screens and first-time buyers. This helped grow Android's share of the market to 61.9 percent of unit sales, from 45.8 percent in 2012. Apple's iPad fell to 36.0 percent from 52.8 percent, despite growing sales to over 70 million units. Microsoft doubled its market share, to 2.1 percent or just over 4 million Windows tablets sold, from 1.0 percent in 2012.
From a brand perspective, Apple remained the top vendor in 2013 with a 36.0 percent share of sales. Samsung was second, more than doubling its share to 19.1 percent, followed by Asus with 5.6 percent and Amazon with 4.8 percent. Lenovo ranked fifth with 3.3 percent of the market or 6.5 million tablets sold.
Gartner's figures are part of broader research into the ultramobiles market, which also includes hybrid and clamshell laptops with tablets as screens. Tablets made up 90 percent of the 216 million ultramobile devices sold last year, but the hybrid laptop grew faster, helped by the addition of a keyboard to improve productivity. Asus was the top manufacturer in the hybrid category, led by its Transformer Book T100.
