To continue the topic of tablet wars that was started on this blog, let’s take a closer look at the global tablet market in the third quarter of this year. According to the IDC Worldwide Tablet Tracker data, two leading Android tablet manufacturers represented by Samsung and Amazon gained a 27.4% cumulative share of the global tablet market (a 20.9% increase from Q3 2011), while Apple’s share shrunk to 50.4% (a 9.3% drop from Q3 2011).

Samsung and Amazon Tablets Heat Up the Game

Q3 2012 was definitely a time for success for Samsung and Amazon tablets. Samsung, a long-term player in the field of the Android-based tablets, shipped 5.1 million tablets worldwide in 3Q12 and captured as much as 18.4% of the tablet market. This was a prominent 325.0% growth from 3Q11, when it shipped 1.2 million tablets.

Samsung debuted in the US with its first 7-inch tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab, back in November 2010, and sold 1 million of copies within the first two months, as reported by PC World.

The latest generation model of the Samsung tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, was originally unveiled on February 27, 2012 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. After a generous hardware update curated by the Samsung R&D center, this model was finally launched in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea on August 16, 2012. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 came in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions and had a price tag starting at $499 (the pricing model similar to the third-gen iPad’s).

Amazon, a new player in this field, announced a 7-inch Android-based tablet with a color touch screen on September 28, 2011. It was available for as little as $199; currently the price for the refreshed 7-inch version is $159. It was a bargain for those who could not afford a more expensive tablet and who didn’t require much from a tablet, e.g. a web camera, a larger screen, more storage, etc.

The Kindle Fire HD was announced on September 6, 2012. It was the second generation of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet line available in two form factors, 7 inch and 8.9 inch. These two models, priced from $199 to $499, helped Amazon grow its worldwide market share from 4.8% in 2Q12 to 9.0% in 3Q12.

The iPad Family Grows Even Faster than Expected

In recent years, Apple started losing market share to Android tablets and this trend proved to be more prominent in Q3 2012. Last quarter Apple tablets captured a 50.4% global market share; it was a 9.3% drop from the same period last year when Apple’s share was 59.7%.

In a chase for more sales and customers, Apple offered three new models this year. March 2012 was the time for the third-generation iPad release. The iPad 3 was offered for $499, the same price as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

To compete in the fierce market flooded by the cheaper and spec-rich Android tablets, Apple, 7 months later, released a fourth-generation iPad with a faster A6X processor and a Lightning connector and offered it for $499. The ridiculous thing was that the iPad 4 was released so soon after the iPad 3 release, although Apple used to update its models once in a year. This fact might actually make the owners of the now “old” third-gen iPad feel a little bit… upset.

There was one more iPad to hit the shelves in October 2012: the iPad mini. It had a 7.9-inch screen, 16G memory, and offered LTE cellular capability, starting at $329. The iPad mini didn’t have a Retina display; this step was obviously made by Apple in order to cut the costs and lower the price. Its retail price was still definitely above the same-form-factor tablets such as the Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Nook HD, so we’ll see how it competes.

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As reported by comScore, 116.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in August 2012. This was a 6.5% increase from May 2012, when the number of smartphone users hit 110 million. A majority of American smartphone users preferred Android-based devices in May 2012; this was true as well in August.

US Smartphone Market: The Share for Android and Apple Increased at the Expense of RIM, Microsoft and Symbian

According to the comScore MobiLens data, Android smartphones gained a 52.6 % market share in the U.S. by the end of August 2012. It was a prominent 1.7 % growth from 50.9 % in May. The advancing army of Android-powered phones was represented by the Samsung Galaxy series, Motorola Droid Razr, HTC One, LG Genesis and some others.

Apple smartphones gained a 34.3 % market share by the end of August 2012, a 2.4 % growth from 31.9% in May.

RIM’s BlackBerry OS continued to be the third-most-popular mobile platform in the U.S., with an 8.3 % market share. Unfortunately RIM’s share had shrunk substantially in the three months covered in the report (a 3.1 % drop from 11.4 % in May). BlackBerry’s share of the smartphone market has fallen far behind the #1 and #2 market leaders.

Microsoft’s share dropped from 4.0 % to 3.6 % by the end of August (a 0.4 % drop). The Symbian OS experienced a 0.4 % drop on the US market as well – from 1.10 % in May to 0.7 % by the end of August.

As we can clearly see from the chart below, the Android and iOS smartphone platforms grew their market share at the expense of RIM, Microsoft and Symbian OS:

Most Popular Mobile Phone Manufacturers from June-August 2012

According to the comScore data, Samsung ranked as the top device manufacturer with 25.7 % of U.S. mobile subscribers in June, July and August 2012. The #2 mobile phone brand was LG – with an 18.2 % share of the mobile market. Apple gained a 17.1 % share of mobile subscribers, followed by Motorola with 11.2 % and HTC with 6.3 %.

See the chart below which outlines the US market share of each mobile manufacturer in August 2012:

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Media tablets have become a fast-growing market with great opportunities. In just a few years, tablets have entered our lives and redefined our attitude towards mobile communication and networking, gaming, online shopping and office productivity.

There are currently two leading operating systems fighting for leadership of the global tablet market: iOS represented by Apple’s iPad devices and Android represented by a variety of vendors (Samsung, Amazon, Asus and others). Let’s see how they have been stacking against each other from early 2011 through the first half of 2012.

Q1 2011:

Apple Tablets Ruled the Game with a 65.7% Global Market Share; Android Took 34%

At the beginning of 2011, Apple products accounted for 65.7% of the global tablet market, while Android-based media tablets saw a collective market share of 34.0% (stats provided by IDC).

Q2 2011:

Apple Represented 68.3% of the Global Tablet Market; Android Slipped to 26.8%

As stated in IDC’s Press Release, worldwide media tablet shipments in the second quarter of 2011 were driven by continued demand for Apple’s iPad 2, which saw shipments reach 9.3 million units, representing a 68.3% share of the worldwide market. RIM’s PlayBook, introduced in the second quarter of 2011, took a 4.9% share of the market and made the Android-based media tablets slip to a 26.8% market share, down from 34.0% the previous quarter.

Q3 2011:

iPads Represented 61.5% of the Market; Android Took 23%

According to the IDC report, Apple continued to drive worldwide media tablet shipments in Q3 2011. The company shipped 11.1 million units in 3Q 2011, up from 9.3 million units in Q2 2011. That represents a 61.5% worldwide market share (down from 68.3% in Q2 2011).

HP both entered and exited the market in Q3 of 2011 with its $99 TouchPad product based on the Microsoft WebOS. The company shipped 903,354 units to grab a 5% share of the worldwide market, number three behind Samsung’s 5.6% market share (Android based). Barnes & Noble shipped 805,458 units of the Nook Color to achieve the number  four spot with a 4.5% market share. ASUS rounded out the top five with a 4% share. As a result, the cumulative share of the Android-based devices slipped to 23% in Q3 2011.

Q4 2011:

Apple Suffered a Slip to 54.7%; Amazon’s Kindle Fire Heated Up the Game and Pushed  Up Android to the 25.9% Mark

In Q4 2012, IDC reported that Apple suffered a market share loss mostly because of Android’s gain and Apple took only 54.7% of the global tablet market share. The reason was the swift introduction and rising popularity of Kindle Fire, a cheap $199 tablet offered by Amazon that gained a 16.8% market share. Samsung grew its market share from 5.5% in Q3 to 5.8% in Q4. RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook saw its market share drop from 1.1% to 0.7%. WebOS, which controlled 5% of the market in Q3 2011 because of the HP TouchPad, dropped to zero % in Q4.

As a result, in Q4 2011 the cumulative share of the Android-based devices reached 25.9% which came at the expense of Blackberry, iOS, and webOS devices.

Q1 2012:

iPads Regained 68% of the Global Tablet Market

As IDC reported in another Press Release, Apple shipped 11.8 million iPads during Q1 2012 and grew its worldwide share to 68%, as opposed to 54.7% in the last quarter of 2011. Amazon’s Kindle Fire saw its share decline significantly in the first quarter to just over 4% from 16.8% in the previous quarter, falling to third place as a result. Samsung took advantage of Amazon’s weakness to regain the number two position.

Q2 2012:

Apple Tablet Devices Reached Nearly 70% of the Market Share

As reported by IDC and IHS iSuppli, Apple shipped 17 million iPads during Q2 2012 and covered 69.6% of the tablet market. Samsung experienced exceptional growth, and landed in second place with 9.2% share on 2.3 million tablet shipments. Amazon (Kindle Fire) and Asus took the third and fourth spots with 4.2% and 2.8% share, respectively.

Note: The shipments of the Google/ASUS co-branded Nexus 7 aren’t reflected in these totals, as that product officially began shipping into the channel in the third quarter of 2012.

Forecasts and Predictions on the Tablet Market for 2012-2016

See below the IDC global tablet forecast predicting that the dominance of iOS devices will lessen from 2012-2016 because of the popularity of Android-based devices:

As you see, Android is not going to give up, and we’ll keep an eye on the tablet market for you. If you are an Android fan and want to be productive with your email flow, try out the EmailTray email app for Android. Apart from being a lightweight email app with a user-friendly interface, it provides an intelligent email prioritizing feature that lets you focus on important mail and eliminates information overload.

A mobile phone is no longer a means of making and receiving calls only. The SMS and MMS features, calendar, calculator, alarm clock, a built-in photo camera and many other features have extended the ways we use a mobile phone nowadays. Having a smartphone now practically means having a computer in your pocket. With a smartphone, you can make calls, check your mail, browse your favorite websites and make online purchases, view weather forecasts and track your favorite sport teams, play games, edit and share documents online and so much more. There is no wonder that more than half of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones.

A Rapid Growth of the U.S. Smartphone Market from 2007-2012

According to this comScore Data Mine report, 9 million Americans owned a smartphone in July 2007 – representing just 4 percent of the entire mobile market. By May 2012, this figure reached as many as 110 million users! See below how fast the smartphone market has been growing within the last 5 years:

To understand what share smartphones occupy on the overall mobile phone market, let’s refer to the Nielsen Mobile Netstats: during Q2 2012 smartphone penetration continued to grow, with 54.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owning smartphones as of June 2012.

Operating Systems Popular on the U.S. Smartphone Market

As reported by the comScore Data Mine, Android now captures the majority share of the U.S. smartphone market. Google Android’s share of the smartphone market eclipsed 50 percent in February 2012, an increase of 17 percentage points since February 2011. Apple ranked second with 30.2 percent of the smartphone market (up 5 percentage points versus a year before), followed by RIM at 13.4 percent, Microsoft at 3.9 percent and Symbian at 1.5 percent.

Do U.S. Mobile Users Prefer Browsers or Apps?

It’s an interesting question, and comScore’s Mobile ® Metrix 2.0 gives the answer: apps account for 4 in every 5 US mobile media minutes. On Facebook, 80 percent of the time spent was via app usage compared to 20 percent via browser. Twitter accounted for an even higher percentage of time spent with apps at 96.5 percent of all Twitter use minutes. As we know, there are bazillions of Twitter and Facebook apps which allow you to schedule your status updates, track your Twitter performance and more.

The chart below demonstrates the method used to access various Internet properties by mobile users – from Google sites to Facebook, Twitter, ESPN and many others:

As we see from the reports above, most smartphone users prefer the Android platform and rave about mobile apps – most obviously because they are sexy-looking, fast and are focused on specific tasks. The good news is that the EmailTray email app for Android has these characteristics and gives you access to your mail in a convenient way. The EmailTray Android app provides an intelligent email prioritizing feature which lets you focus on important mail and eliminates information overload.

If your choice is the Kindle Fire tablet – you are not left out in the cold: EmailTray developers have prepared a Kindle Fire mail app for you, too. Download the EmailTray mail app for Kindle Fire, and enjoy your mailing experience!