Will Android Tablets Pass iPad in 2013?

The technical answer is yes. Android AOSP (Android open source project) meaning Android code that can be freely taken and used will be installed on more tablets than iPads in 2013. But the story isn’t that simple or clean cut. Data requires perspective and that is what I hope to provide around IDC’s latest press release and chart predicting that Android will be on more tablets than iOS in 2013 and beyond.

Here is the original IDC chart.

Screen Shot 2013-03-12 at 2.20.17 PM

Now at first glance we look at that chart and mistakingly assume that the red part, which signifies Android, means a flavor of Android with universal value to both Google and developers. If I was a developer, I would look at that chart and think that Android tablets must be where I should focus my resources because it is clearly the OS market share leader starting in 2013 and beyond. However, if I thought that I would be wrong.

To clearly understand the Android picture we need to better understand the flavors of the OS and in particular which ones have the Google Play store and which ones do not. Because what really matters if we are interested in a clear industry picture of OS platform share is the distribution mechanisms for applications on each platform. If iOS represents a certain amount of market share then I can be confident that Apple’s app store is on that percentage of devices and install base.

The problem when we talk about Android market share in both smartphones and tablets, is that we are not talking about market share in which a universal app store medium exists. This is because Android can be taken and forked, to the chagrin of Google, and used for the sole agenda of others thus not benefiting Google or the Play Store developers. This is the problem we have when we look at the Android growth in tablets. The greatest percentage of it is coming from Amazon with their Kindle fire, and the Chinese market. The Kindle Fire runs a forked version of Android and developers must use Amazon’s SDK and proprietary app store. 90% of Chinese Android devices sold do not come with the Goolge Play store installed but rather have ties to dozens of local app store from local service providers. Therefore to get an accurate picture of the Android market, it is more helpful to break out market share by devices which have the Play store and the ones that do not. If we did, then IDC’s, chart would look more like this.

chartmodified

Chart Caveat: Two things about this chart. First I’m making a point not a series of forecasts. I will let my friends at IDC and other firms do the forecasting. Second, the size of the tablet market in 2017 could likely be over 600 million.

This is a more helpful way to look at the data and understand the market share. If I am a developer and I look at this data, then I may be more inclined to say that I should focus on Amazon’s platform vs. Google’s version of Android when it comes to tablets. More importantly I would understand that iOS and Apple’s App store still offers me the greatest total addressable market. China is the wild wild west as I point out and only local devs have a shot there at figuring out their app store mess.

Since Android is not actually a platform, but an enabling technology that allows companies to create platforms, it’s helpful to look at the data in a way that shows the picture as it is. Stating generically “Android market share” does not give an accurate picture to the market which needs the data to make educated decisions.

My goal here is not to be overly negative on Android, but simply to paint a more accurate industry picture.

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Ben Bajarin

Ben Bajarin is a Principal Analyst and the head of primary research at Creative Strategies, Inc - An industry analysis, market intelligence and research firm located in Silicon Valley. His primary focus is consumer technology and market trend research and he is responsible for studying over 30 countries. Full Bio

463 thoughts on “Will Android Tablets Pass iPad in 2013?”

  1. Android not a platform. Interesting. It does explain all the scurrying around by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, HP, LG, and Samsung to secure more integration, to build a platform. Like Apple.

    1. yeah, thats at least how I see it. How its being forked and used as an enabler for platforms is very interesting. I inline linked to some articles in this post where I break that down further.

    2. Same as WebKit is not a platform. Android and WebKit are both platform components that manufacturers can use when building their own platforms. Google used Apple WebKit to make Android and Chrome, but that does not mean Android and Chrome are Apple products or benefit Apple in any way. Amazon used Android to make Kindle, but that does not mean Kindle is a Google product or benefits Google in any way. And software developers cannot target all WebKit-based or all Android-based products as one platform. You can make a Web app for Safari that doesn’t run in Chrome — both WebKit-based. You can make an app for Samsung Galaxy 3 that doesn’t run on a single Motorola phone — both Android-based. There is not even a guarantee that your Samsung Android-based app runs on all Samsung Android-based phones!

      The Apple equivalent of Android is not iOS — it is Darwin. Darwin is an open source component that Apple uses to build both iOS and Mac OS X platforms. Mac apps don’t run on iOS devices just because they are both Darwin-based. Amazon uses Android to build their Kindle platform. Apps that run on Kindle don’t run on Galaxy Tab just because they are both Android-based.

      So unless the definition of platform is being arbitrarily changed, no Android is not a platform. Today’s platforms are iOS, Mac, iPod, PlayStation, Wii, Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Vista/7, Windows XP, Xbox, Kindle, Nexus, Galaxy. By looking at this list, you can see right away that Microsoft has too many platforms, leading to their chicken/egg problem of very few apps for Windows 8 and Windows RT. You can see why a lot of Android-based software development is targeted only at Kindle, Nexus, or Galaxy, which combined are relatively small, maybe 10% of all Android-based devices, which is why it is had to make money with Androidbased development. You can see what is really happening. You don’t end up mystified as to why iOS has the most developer support because you can see it is by far the largest platform. Reality.

      1. I don’t want to broaden this too far. Cus’ I have no idea what I’m talking about. Wikipedia does define operating systems as platforms, however.

        My interest is in a nontech definition of a platform, as in a business platform. I’m just going to glump this info below. What intrigues me is the idea that a platform, say a political platform, can a logical articulation on which a community can gather and build.

        Platform businesses have a number of attributes in common. These include:
        Platforms are open. A “proprietary platform” isn’t.
        Platforms can be built upon.
        No one should have to ask you permission or pay you money to start building on your platform (although platforms can ultimately be both commercial and non-commercial).
        Platforms attract communities of builders. To thrive, these communities should be managed and nurtured.
        Building a community around your platform enables you to build your business more effectively with the enthusiastic help of customers, suppliers and partners.
        Platforms scale efficiently. Self-service access and low barriers to entry are cornerstones of this.
        Platforms do not discriminate between small and large builders. Some platforms enable small builders to compete on a level playing field and disrupt incumbent businesses.
        A platform is a two-way contract between the platform provider and the builders that utilize the platform.
        Platforms can be managed in a way that encourages positive outcomes for the platform business as well as customers and builders.
        Platforms can facilitate unexpected outcomes. This is usually a good thing, if it’s managed properly.
        Source: Platform Associates

        1. If operating systems and platforms were the same, there would only be one term, the other would fade away and no longer be used.

          Operating system has meant very different things over the years. By some definitions, Darwin is Apple’s operating system. By other definitions, OS X is Apple’s operating system. By other definitions, Apple has 2 operating systems: iOS and Mac OS (called OS X today, but referring to something different than what OS X referred to from 1999–2008, which was just the core part that was put under Mac OS in 1999 and put under iOS in 2007.) By some definitions, Apple’s operating system is xnu, just the kernel of Darwin.

          So no, operating system does not equal platform. The fact that Wikipedia says so only strengthens my position.

          Platforms is also very generic. For music and movie producers, iTunes is Apple’s platform, but for software developers, Apple’s platforms are iOS and Mac OS X. In the context of this article, we are talking about the latter kind of platform: a group of users that a software app or hardware accessory developer can target as one. An iOS app runs on all iOS devices; a Mac app runs on all Mac OS X devices; a Wii app runs on all Wii’s.

          The Web is a platform for basic Web pages (not really for apps yet, unfortunately) but is not an operating system. Java is a platform but not an operating system.

          1. All good. Just to clarify. I didn’t say all platforms were OSes, but that all OSes were platforms.

      2. There are accepted definitions here. The heart of an operating system is the kernel. Darwin, a modified BSD Unix kernel, serves the purpose for OS X and iOS. Android’s kernel is modified Linux. But Android, like iOS or OS X or Windows, is a full operating system, with a file system, a program scheduler, I/O, and a user interface (or actually, a number of UIs, depending on version.) Compatibility of of applications among OS versions is generally determined at the API level–a program will only run on a given OS instance if it uses only the APIs supported by the OS. iOS and OS X have a fair number of APIs in common, but not nearly enough to support interoperation (not to mention the fact that iOS runs on ARM processors and OS X on Intel x86.

        On the other hand, you can run many stock Android programs on a Kindle Fire provided they are written for the version of android on which Fire’s software is based.

  2. The distribution channel fragmentation is just another dimension in the Android fragmentation story.
    It should actually be the one that generates the least amount of headache during the development process, proportional with the code and design changes needed.
    I can see how it complicates maintenance and support, but it’s an ordinary cost of doing business. Selling through multiple distributors never broke anyone’s back.

    1. I agree with that in respect to Amazon but not to China. The China one is a mess. I constantly hear horror stories of devs from that market.

      Also interestingly we are getting quite a bit of data now that much of those white box cheap Android tabs in china are just being used as media players (video). So one could argue they aren’t even really using the apps or computing elements that may benefit a app dev business model.

      1. The Android-based tablets are all media players like iPod. They run phone-based operating systems, phone-sized apps, music, movies, book reader, Web browser at roughly a $200 price point. Just like an iPod. They should be compared in sales to iPods. When you do that, a picture appears that shows Apple media players are optimized primarily for music, Amazon’s primarily for books, and everyone else’s for movies. Which of course makes perfect sense. That shows the heritage of Apple and Amazon — music and books, respectively — when they started making media players. That shows how everyone else came late and had cheap enough large screens to sell primarily as large-screen movie players. In a sense, an Android-based tablet is the true “iPod video” that Apple never did. iPods continue to be music players that can also play video as a secondary feature.

        iPad, on the other hand, is a PC. The one and only successful tablet PC thus far after about 20 years of trying. iPad runs the core OS from a high-end PC workstation, and its primary function is to run full-size native C/C++ apps. Full-size is 1024×768 at 1x or Retina 2x resolution — PC size. Native C/C++ apps are also found on Mac, Windows, and game consoles — PC apps. Not Java like Android-based devices, but C like PC’s. My iPad replaced one of my Macs and I run the same apps on the iPad that I used to run on that Mac. An iPad is a Mac with the mouse user interface and mouse developer interface replaced by touch user interface and touch developer interface and the security locked down an extra level for even more ease of use and reliability.

        I can work all day on my iPad at my job, and often do. I have yet to see anyone work all day on a Kindle Fire. I have yet to even see a Samsung tablet being used. It is no small thing because the money that paid for my iPad came out of what used to be a 2-Mac budget but is now a 1 Mac and 1 iPad budget. So iPad did not grow my technology budget to add touch and 10 hour PC mobility, it shrank it. For others, they are replacing a Windows PC purchase with iPad, and getting a cheaper, better, easier to use, longer battery life PC. And the iPad apps are cheaper than Mac apps and much cheaper than Windows apps. On the other hand, Android-based tablets are considered expensive at $200 because they don’t replace a $400–$800 Windows PC purchase. You have to find additional budget for them. They are Windows PC accessories.

        So this is just more of the same pro-generic propaganda that we have always seen. A little know fact is that Mac developers have always made the same or more money than Windows developers, Adobe has always made roughly 50:50 on each platform. That is because the users who are actively engaged in each platform is about the same. But IT analysts lump in Windows-based point-of-sale systems, bank machines, kiosks, typewriters, and even servers to present the picture that Windows has 90% of a meta PC market. That is a big part if why so many Windows developers and manufacturers went bust. They built for a phantom user base, and then sold into a market that was really only 10% that size — the engaged users who were running Windows and buying apps and hardware accessories.

        So the decoding you are doing here is an age-old tradition. I’m an Apple user since the 80’s. I have seen this all before. The Mac was not counted as a PC by many IT analysts until it adopted Intel processors in 2005/2006, even though at that point, every PC they had counted for 15 years was a Mac clone. There are a lot of IT analysts with a vested interest in the generic market, which primarily makes sales by convincing naive users that Windows is the same as Mac, Kindle Fire is the same as iPad, Galaxy phones are the same as iPhone. They piggyback on the demand Apple creates while simultaneously minimizing Apple at every turn. A smart reader has to decode IT analysis and unwrap that bias.

    2. Of course selling through multiple distribution channels has broken backs. That was the basis upon which we got 5 giant record companies and 5 giant movie companies in the 20th century. That created only 5 distribution channels out of an amalgam of hundreds of thousands of retailers. It saved many producers from going out of business. Hip little independent record companies did not sell to giant record companies because they wanted to — the multiple distribution channels broke their backs.

      Apple has created a system where there is only one distribution channel, so that a 1-person app developer can function on equal distribution terms with giant companies. The distribution channel does not break any backs and force an intermediary set of giant distributors to appear to gobble everything up until the distribution channels are united.

      If you develop an Android-based app, to reach all of the devices, you would have to create a business agreement with over 10,000 individual retailers. To reach all Apple devices, you make one agreement with one retailer.

      As a consumer, you can see an app running on a friend’s Android-based device, rush out and buy an Android-based phone, and never be able to find that app for purchase on your new phone because it is wired into a different retailer.

      Android-based phone making is a non-profit for everybody other than Samsung. Android-based app development is a non-profit for almost everybody. Unprofitable business equals broken back.

    1. No since they don’t report that way. The best we can do is get channel sales from our friends at NPD but in the case of Amazon its not complete because of online.

      Besides looking at it the way I am, the other nut that needs to be cracked is what an activation is. I’ve heard from numerous sources that when an android device is updated, that it could be counted as another activation. Thus the same device can be counted numerous times. I’m still trying to validate this but its an interesting talking point.

  3. Apple open source code (WebKit) will be installed on way more devices than Android open source code. WebKit is on all Apple devices, Android-based devices, BlackBerry devices, most Nokia devices, all Chrome OS -based devices. as well as PC installations of Chrome and Adobe Creative Suite. Lumping all of these devices into “the WebKit platform” is just as unimportant a sales metric as “the Android platform.” Samsung is the only one making any money from Android, and they are also the manufacturer that most-closely copied Apple. Did people buy a Galaxy phone to get Android features, or did they buy it to get iPhone features?

    When you break out the numbers by manufacturer, comparing Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, LG, Sony, HTC then you see the actual phone and tablet markets, and suddenly you understand why Apple has all the influence. And you have to compare sold versus sold. This is basic science.

    So we are just witnessing a propaganda campaign by the generic tech industry. Regular people think Apple’s sales and market share have crashed when both of those metrics have only ever gone up. It is the combined Android market share that fell last quarter, and Android-based devices have gone even further downmarket and become even more unprofitable.

  4. By 2017 there just might be a Samsung fork of Android too. As a stepping stone on the way to replacing Android with Tizen as Samsung’s mobile OS of choice. Either way, Sammy may not be running the generic Google release in 5 years.

    And then there’s the possibility of a Motorola fork as well. And maybe that’s the reason why Rubin stepped aside. Because he wanted Android to be one-size-fits-all and the rest of Google management wanted Motorola to get the latest features first. To give them an advantage over other Android handset makers (especially Samsung with their own optimized Android fork.) To help an recoup that disastrous $12.5 billion investment in useless patents.

    1. The guy who replaced Rubin is the Chrome chief. Google is shipping its own Chrome hardware already. Motorola may become the Chrome hardware maker, making Chrome phones and tablets.

      Android apps are based on stolen Oracle/Sun intellectual property. Oracle wants them impounded and destroyed. Eventually it will happen because otherwise, all copyright law is affected negatively. Google erased “© Sun” from the Java specification (a giant document that took Sun 10 years and millions of dollars to write) and put on “© Google” and continued on their way. Ultimately, that can’t stand.

      So I expect this leadership change is part of Google focusing further on Chrome OS, which runs a legal kind of app. With proprietary hardware, Chrome can easily outcompete Nexus.

      1. John, you sing sweet music and I am madly penning the notes. And speaking of pen, that is where the Google top brass needs to be asap, IMun-HO.

        addendum
        and regarding further below “. . . should have done a big-screen Zune with the movies from Xbox, but since Apple didn’t do a big-screen iPod, Microsoft never thought of it.” Just about gagged on my milk and cookies.
        There is an opera in the tales of Apple and MicroSoft. I could see The Magic Flute meets Punch and Judy.

        This TP edition has been one of the most instructive and entertaining pieces of tech journalisms and commentary in a long time.

  5. Ben, very helpful insight. The other factor that struck me is that the total number of tablets is increasing and thus iOS numbers which represent the major profit of the tablet market are increasing. It might be argued in light of what you have revealed in these numbers that Apples’ influence in this market may be expected to increase.

    1. It is iPad’s influence on the PC market that is interesting. The other tablets are just media players, but iPad is a PC. From 2006–2010 the Intel Mac took almost the whole high-end of PC’s and drove Windows PC’s down to a $400 average sales price, where iPad is currently murdering it. That is why Windows 8 is a tablet PC system. That is the basis of competition now in the low-end PC market. Low-end PC’s are tablet PC’s now, and high-end PC’s are workstations.

      iPad versus Windows 8 is the story of 2013. Apple supplanting Microsoft as the center of PC computing is the story of 2006–2016. So is Apple supplanting Nokia/BlackBerry as the center of phones.

      A bunch of $200 media players from hundreds of manufacturers is an echo of the iPod market. Boring. Notice the leaders in media players are Apple, Amazon, and Google — iTunes, Kindle, and Play are the reason because media players need content stores. Microsoft has something similar with Live, but no media player devices, so no media player sales since they retired Zune. They should have done a big-screen Zune with the movies from Xbox, but since Apple didn’t do a big-screen iPod, Microsoft never thought of it.

  6. More and more Chinese tablets are coming with the Play Store nowadays. And as long as you buy a tablet with Android, Google profits in market share statistics. And even if you are using a different apps store than the Play Store, Google profits via AdMob and usage statistics/data mining. And as long as this app store (not thousands, not hundreds, there are more like 5 or 6 important ones) or website, and even blog sites, are not pirating paid apps, the developer will benefit via the ads/ad network he is using.

    It’s hard to compare Apple with Google; their business models are completely different. But to dismiss Google’s take on mobiles/OSes would be foolish. Especially considering that their business model has never really failed them; just look at their stock. But time will tell.

  7. Reading through the comments and article again, Samsung surfaces as a big X factor. It’s noted below that it might fork Android. Maybe it just sticks a fork in Android and moves off entirely to its own OS. Samsung owes Android nothing; it’s free, right? And Samsung wants to be Apple, not Sony and certainly not a Google lackey.

    1. I agree on those points. I think Samsung must either fork Android or do something of their own entirely if they want to continue to attempt to have a premium business. You are not in control of your own future when you ship the same software as your competitors.

      1. Can Samsung search and ads be far behind? It’s put out a Passbook app. We can’t all live upstream, but I bet Samsung thinks it can. Tiger by the tail?

  8. @Ben wrote, “This is because Android can be taken and forked, to the chagrin of Google…”

    An interesting thought experiment — not too different from seeing what insights you get by denying one of the axioms of Euclidian geometry — is to see what happens if you’re wrong, if Google really is quite happy to see Android become universal and totally out of its control.

    In this environment, the OS would be so completely commoditized that its value was effectively zero. Any commodity engineering shop — which Ben Evans has documented very well — could bang out a tablet by making a couple of phone calls for screens, plastic moldings and generic circuit boards; as a result the hardware would cost very little, too, maybe $100 for what would have amazed anybody back just ten years ago at $2000.

    Now, the value is purely for the producers of information/entertainment. (An aside: loved seeing the McLuhan quote, “Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.”) Those content providers need a way for people to find and pay for their work; today, with the exception of a very few paywalls that are working well, means advertising—advertising their site and running ads for products to pay for the sites.

    Of course, it is advertising on which Google is nearing a complete monopoly.

    No, not in China or India, and non-™ OASP Android might enable other services to get established in markets in a way that’ll make it harder for Google to compete later. But in truth, Google has probably written off any hope of doing business in the People’s Republic, as the government wants total control of information (especially political content), and near-total economic control. So not much loss there. But at least, in the US, Microsoft is denied the opportunity to profit from distributing hardware with Bing as the default search engine and Apple’s iAd continues to go nowhere.

    So even an out-of-control Android world leaves Google MORE effectively in control of its monopoly, of the only way they’ve EVER made money.

    I don’t know what the Rubin departure means for this Gedankenexperiment. It could be that Google assumes it’s done all it needs to demolish Microsoft as a mobile competitor (the original rationale for Android), and that it’s time to let the OHA go its own way, while Google switches to promoting Chrome as the end-all, be-all way of accessing everything through the Google portal. But that would correlate nicely with my idea, maybe accelerate it.

    (PS: just saw the Quartz thoughts and it crystallized the idea that next up is for Google to submit Android as a W3C spec — that ANY party can deliver content thru Android applets without any royalties — as a way of attacking the Windows and iOS abilities to deliver great apps only through their platforms. That’d be PERFECTLY consonant with their typical disruptive innovation approach.)

    Still, I’m not seeing a scenario in which Google attempts to take Android back under its exclusive control. Like so many markets where Google first scorches, and then salts the earth so nothing else can grow (be monetized except by ads), Android has done its job and Google is moving on.

    1. What you bring up goes to the heart of the question of why Android exists in the first place. I firmly believe that Android was conceived as a disruptor play in an attempt to force a commodity hardware business. From close OEM relationships we have, I know google always encouraged their partners to get the costs down, down, down. Despite their partners asking for ways they can get better margins or make money on things other than hardware, since making money on hardware alone is a not a business many want to be in.

      I am not sure Google anticipated that partners would want an upstream play rather than a downstream play. But I am convinced Google wanted a commodity business related to hardware because its was better for their services side of the business.

      I fall into the camp that Google didn’t care at all to make money from Android, they simply wanted to make sure their search got on as many mobile devices as possible and for that they believed forcing a commodity market using Android as the vehicle to do so would take it down that path.

      This is not happening and their partners are having trouble making money. Just like MSFT, I expect google to lose more Android partners.

      1. exactly, and as proof we know that Google pays Apple – it’s supposed OS rival – a lot each year to remain the default search app for iOS.

    2. Walt, is there anyway that Apple could do to ‘search and advertising’ to disrupt Google, as Google and Amazon have done in disruption of other’s business models; i.e., along the way of “free” or next to free? With the cash it has on hand, Apple could afford to do it at break-even, or even at a loss. There are other models out there that Apple might buy or bring into its fold namely Start Page, DuckDuckGo, and dare I add, Bing and Yahoo. I’d forgotten about iAd but with profit taken out of the scenario, Apple might find it possible to think outside the box. Surely it would be to both Apple’s and MicroSoft’s advantage to work on some disruptive line together. My enemy’s enemy is my friend sort of stratagem.

      1. I’m not aware of a major success that has resulted recently from a frontal assault. Google’s Android ascendancy was based on disrupting the value stack of Microsoft’s OS not by giving it away (as it appears), but from monetizing it with ads (which, TBH, hasn’t actually worked THAT well).

        Apple’s recent big hits all came after Jobs told the faithful two decades ago, to get over the fact that they lost the PC wars, and to go do something great in new markets. Only lately are they doing ANYTHING like direct competition with Microsoft, in announcing the 128GB iPad.

        So no, a frontal assault on Google, pouring billions into destroying another’s business, with no hope from creating a new market, seems fruitless — mean-spirited, too, which is a distraction of what they claim to, and mostly actually do, do.

        The only areas I can see Apple leveraging are in first-class hardware (where they stand clearly ahead of all but a few Android lines) and online services: better synchronizing, better usability, easier access, bypassing the generic, and ad-cluttered web. Those will be challenges enough; Apple’s efforts with maps and Siri are not exactly moving everybody to switch to them.

        1. “So no, a frontal assault on Google, pouring billions into destroying another’s business, with no hope from creating a new market, seems fruitless — mean-spirited, too, which is a distraction of what they claim to, and mostly actually do, do.”

          In my heart of hearts I agree. Apple is not a mean spirited or desperate company but it sure must rankle when Google, whom Apple invited to its board, pulled some pretty cranky low punches. “Do no evil” is truly more Apple’s style, and this is mostly understood and appreciated by its faithful followers, I suspect. An Apple wristwatch, a low priced iPhone for lower end users with fewer high-tech needs would open the doors even in NA and Europe as should across China, India and poorer markets. (I know I prefer my iPad in this regard and would jump at an iPhone less featured.) I’m sure Apple had all this in its plans and scenarios long ago having anticipated the trends of today. Apple is a mind open, mysterious yet not devious, whilst so obviously desperate are Samsung’s and Google’s frantic caldrons of toil and trouble to be in this game.

          As always, your thoughts help sweep aways the cobwebs of confusion. 🙂

          1. These companies are operated by human beings, but ones with lots of experience in staying focused.

            “Don’t get mad; get even” doesn’t capture it; Scoop Nisker’s “if you don’t like the news, make some of your own” comes a bit closer.

  9. IDC gets away with not being fact checked for its prior years’ predictions, which have often been poor. they have always been “optimistic” about MS in particular (one of their “research” clients i bet). now their 2017 estimate of a Windows RT/full OS tablet share of almost 10% is laughable. RT won’t be around at all by then, and full Windows tablets will be lucky to ever get more than 1% of the market.

  10. Everything on that chart, except the area marked “iOS” is made up numbers. Nobody actually reports sales for android.

    Or put another way, this is just wishful thinking from android fans, and the professional liars at the IDC.

    You may be young, but if you watch IDC for any period of time, all of their predicitions are wrong.

    What they claim and predict is what they are paid to claim and predict by the people purchasing the legitimacy of their “analysis” which comes to pre-ordained conclusions.

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