Should Apple be worried?

Apple’s iPad controls nearly 68 percent of the booming tablet market – a market that topped 25 million unit sa les in the first half of 2012. By comparison, Android managed to capture just 29 percent of the tablet pie (www. strategyanalytics.com), with Microsoft and BlackBerry devices making up the remainder.

With Apple’s CEO Tim Cook suggesting that people don’t shop for tablets, they shop for iPads, you could be forgiven for thinking that any squabbling over the tablet market is pointless dominance is a fait accompli. However, when Apple released its recent financial results to the stock market, traders balked and marked the iPad-maker’s equities down by 4 per cent. A $575.8 million profit wasn’t enough to meet expectations.

As we’ve explained in our review, the budget-priced Google Nexus 7 is the best non -Apple tablet we’ve seen so far, and consumers are lapping it up there’s a lengthy waiting list for the 16GB version. Android isn’t the only threat to Apple’s crown, either. With Microsoft poised to release its Windows 8 based Surface tablet in October, the iPad will face even more credible competition. Assuming Microsoft gets the price of its tablet right- £1,000 sounds too high in our opinion – Surface and Windows 8 are likely to gain considerable market share. Throw the Kindle Fire into the equation too, and we believe the iPad’s dominance has peaked.

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Tags: Assuming Microsoft, Google Nexus, Kindle Fire, News, tablet