The iPad’s dominance of the tablet market will continue for the rest of this year, according to research firm Gartner.
In a report published today, the company predicted that the iPad would have 73.4% of the market in 2011. That’s a reduction of only 10% on last year, despite a significant increase on the number of tablets available to customers.
Android’s share is forecast to be 17.3%, an increase of 4% on 2010, but a reduction on the 28% predicted by Gartner in its forecast three months ago.
‘We expect Apple to maintain a market share lead throughout our forecast period by commanding more than 50 percent of the market until 2014,’ Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. ‘This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services. Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal.’
Gartner predicts that tablet sales will total 63.6 million units in 2011, more than three times the 17.6 million units sold in 2010. Of those 63.6 million sales, 46.6 million are predicted to be iPads, and 11 million Android devices. No other tablet platform has more than 5% of the market. The company said it expected strong growth in tablet sales until 2015, when it expected 326.3 million units to be shipped.
