24.9M Tablets Sold In Q2, With Apple’s Share Of That Now Over 68%, Says Strategy Analytics

One of the strong points in Apple’s quarterly earnings report yesterday was sales of the iPad. Globally, they were up 52% by revenue and 84% by unit sales, respectively to $9 billion and 17 million. In some new figures out today, Strategy Analytics notes that this translates to an increase in overall tablet market share for the company: Apple now controls 68.3% of the market, compared to 62% in Q2 a year ago, in an overall tablet market that saw shipments of 24.9 million units. So much for analyst predictions: here’s one (of several) that had forecast a decline in Apple’s market share.

So why the reversal? It looks like the competition that many had been expecting to give Apple a run for its money has failed to materialize. But while Apple’s market share is the best it’s been in years, Strategy Analytics also cautions that overall the market has also witnessed its slowest growth rate since the first iPad launched in Q2 2010, a result of a slowdown in the global economy, it says.

Microsoft, which will be releasing a new tablet-friendly OS in the form of Windows 8 later this year, has lost nearly 3% market share, according to figures from Strategy Analytics.

Collectively, all of the others (that would be PlayBook, primarily) have lost 3.5%.

And Android, meanwhile, has grown the number of units it has sold to 7.3 million compared to 4.4 million in 2011; but in the wider tablet market, that has only kept its market share level at 29.3%.

“Despite high expectations for companies like Amazon, Samsung, Acer and Asus, the Android community has yet to make a serious dent in Apple’s dominance of the tablet market,” said analyst Neil Mawston. “Unspectacular hardware designs, limited uptake of cellular models and a modest number of tablet-optimized services have been among some of the main reasons for Android’s mixed performance so far.” Whether a more comprehensive global rollout from Amazon, and the launch of more models, will turn that around remains to be seen.

In fact, Apple’s iPad share is not only going up; it’s the best it’s been in years — since Q3 2010, according to Peter King, a director at the analyst firm. The 24.9 million units sold works out to growth of 67% compared to the 14.9 million units shipped a year ago.

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