Windows goes from zero to 7.5% of the global tablet market

Tablet shipments are setting records and while iOS and Android tablets hold roughly 91% of the global market, Microsoft accomplished massive strides in its own right.


In a report on global tablet OS market share put out by Strategy Analytics, the statistics outline two major winners over the past several months. Android is one, jumping from 34% to 43% market share, and Windows is another, going from essentially nothing in the first quarter of 2012 to 7.5% in the first quarter this year.

iOS is feeling the pinch, shrinking from 63% market share late last year to just 48% now. Do not feel too bad for Apple however, as it shipped over 19 million iPads in the first quarter of this year, nearly doubling its output from a year ago. Android tablets jumped from shipping 6.4 million tablets a year ago to over 17 million last quarter which explains the big grab at market share.

According to the report, Windows tablets shipped 3 million units. Considering there was limited market distribution that is not a terrible showing. Since Microsoft announced that the Surface Pro will be added to 25 new markets in the next couple months, we expect market share to grow. That means it will be eating away at Android and iOS, but we will not know to what extent until the analysts have done their requisite chewing through the data.