Sameer Singh, an analyst with mergers and acquisitions consulting group Finvista Advisors, expects Android tablets to overtake the iPad in market share by mid-2013.
While Apple's iPad has remained the market leader for the past few years, its share has decreased with the introduction of several Android-powered tablets. For the third quarter of 2010, the iPad dominated 87 percent of the market. However, for 2012's third quarter, that number became 50.4 percent.
Singh stressed that the trend will continue, with the market share owned collectively by Android tablets due to surpass the iPad's during the first half of 2013. When analyzing market trends, Singh found that the pace of growth in Android tablet shipments bested that of the iPad in six out of the last eight quarters.
The third quarter, in particular, experienced a considerable decrease in iPad sales due to rumors of the iPad Mini, as well as the introduction of the iPad 4. Based on past results, iPad shipments should have increased by 10 to 15 percent during the last quarter, but they fell by 18 percent instead.
Android tablet shipments, meanwhile, increased from the first quarter to the third quarter. According to the analyst, the growth will continue with more Android manufacturers following the path of the low-cost Amazon Kindle and Google's own Nexus 7.
"OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have learnt from Amazon's model that diversified price points would help expand the market and take share from the iPad," Singh said. "This has resulted in far more broad-based growth, which is not only sustainable, but should result in an accelerated ramp up of sales over the next three to four quarters."
Apple had previously announced that the iPad has sold over 100 million units since the first model launched in 2010. An analyst is also expecting the tablet to sell over 100 million units in 2013 alone, which will be spearheaded by the iPad Mini -- the device, along with the iPad 4, sold three million units in three days.
