Android beats iOS for world's most popular tablet OS title

Android has been crowned the world's most popular tablet operating system after clinching 62 per cent of the market, Gartner's latest global tablet tracker shows.

Tablet sales were up 62 per cent on 2012 last year and topped 195.4 million units, with the market watcher attributing this growth to a surge in first time tablet buyers and the demand for smaller screen devices.

This led to Android's market share hitting 62 per cent in 2013, making it the number one tablet operating system in the world.

Trailing behind in second place is Apple's mobile operating system iOS. Over the past 12 months, its share of the tablet market has fallen by 16.8 percentage points to 36 per cent.

Gartner has blamed this decline on improvements in the quality of smaller, lower cost tablets made by other vendors, and the growing popularity of OEM devices in emerging markets.

According to the analyst's figures, tablet sales grew in emerging markets by 145 per cent in 2013. In the more mature markets, sales increased by 31 per cent, which goes some way to explaining why the former's performance has managed to influence Apple's market share so acutely.

It wasn't all bad news for Apple, though, as it still garnered the most market share in the tablet devices category at 36 per cent.

Samsung was in second, with 19.1 per cent, and ASUS was third with 5.6 per cent.

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, said 2013 was an important year for the tablet market, as the falling price points of Android-based devices meant larger numbers of consumers could afford them for the first time.

"As the Android tablet market becomes highly commoditised, in 2014, it will be critical for vendors to focus on device experience and meaningful technology and ecosystem value beyond just hardware and cost to ensure brand loyalty and improved margins," Cozza added.

Gartner's figures also revealed Windows 8.1 is still struggling to get traction in the market, resulting in Microsoft accounting for just 2.1 per cent of the tablet operating system market.

"To compete, Microsoft needs to create [a] compelling ecosystem proposition for consumers and developers across all mobile devices, as tablets and smartphones become key devices for delivering applications and services to users beyond the PC," said Cozza.