IDC stats reveal Android gains in NZ tablet market

New figures from market tracker IDC reveal NZ is followig global tablet trends.

Google Android-based tablets (made by Samsung, Amazon, Sony, Acer and others) are gaining share on Apple's iPad.

And the market as a whole is expanding strongly at a time when laptop sales are flat, or registering low single digit growth:

Total NZ shipments:

2011 Q3: 48,000
2012 Q2: 68,000
2012 Q3: 91,000

Rounded up to the nearest 1000. Source: IDC

MARKET SHARE (%)

Q3, 2011
Apple iPad: 73.3%
Android: 19.5%
HP webOS: 4.9%
BlackBerry: 1.9%
Windows: 0.4%

Q2, 2012
Apple iPad: 84.4%
Android: 10.8%
Windows: 0.8%

Q3, 2012
Apple iPad: 65.7%
Android: 33.7%
Windows: 0.6%

Market share figures show more of a yo-yo affect. 

The third-generation iPad was launched in the second quarter of this year, and strongly boosted Apple's share.

Look for a similar bounce the current quarter, which has seen the release of the iPad Mini, and the fourth-generation iPad (which is very similar to the third, bar a faster processor and the smaller Lightning connector).

But the overall trends seems to be that Android is finally gaining traction in tablets. (in the smartphone market it has long been dominant, with recent IDC figures showing its global share rising to 75%).

In the US, Android tablet sales have been dominated by the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire, with Google's inhouse Nexus 7 also turning up the heat. But are selling for less than half the price of Apple's new 7.87-inch iPad Mini, but have not been pushed locally. Apple's iPad Mini sold three million in its first three days, and analysts see the seven-inchers driving sales.

RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet gained a bit of buzz here in the third-quarter last year as the Canadian company became a last-minute Rugby World Cup sponsor. But since then, its' completely disappeared off the radard.

HP's webOS-based TouchPad was another disappearing act. The company canned the tablet, but not before an end-of-line fire sale that saw it burst briefly onto IDC's chart.

Microsoft has just edged into IDCs figures thanks to the Windows 7-based Samsung Slate. The company will be hoping for a bounce next year when its homebrand Surface tablet gains local release, backed by Windows 8 tablets from Samsung, HP and Dell.

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