IDC: iPad market share at 68%, lead growing into holidays

IDC has just released their second quarter results for tablet and eReader shipments as well as an updated forecast for the remainder of 2011. While Apple continued to dominate with 68.3% of the global market during Q2, IDC expects Apple’s share to fall as vendors bring competitive Android devices to market later this year and early next.

The study reports second quarter tablet shipments worldwide increased 88.9% (303.8% year over year) citing robust demand for the iPad 2 and sales of 9.3 million units, leading the firm to raise its estimates for the remainder of 2011 from 53.5 million units to 62.5 million.

From the report:

Worldwide media tablet shipments in the second quarter were driven by continued robust demand for Apple’s iPad 2, which saw shipments reach 9.3 million units, representing a 68.3% share of the worldwide market (up from 65.7% the previous quarter). Research in Motion entered the media tablet market in 2Q11 with its PlayBook product, grabbing a 4.9% share of the market. Apple’s strength and RIM’s entrance meant bad news for Android-based media tablets, which saw its collective share slip to 26.8%, down from 34.0% the previous quarter.

Android suffered a blow to its market share during the second quarter, slipping from 34.0% to 26.8%. IDC expects Android’s market share to drop again to 23% during Q3, before increasing to 25.9% in Q4 as vendors introduce new Android-powered competitors.

“Apple’s iOS share will continue to lead by more than 40 percentage points over Google’s Android for the remainder of the year, but we expect Apple’s share to fall closer to 50% by the end of the forecast period as manufacturers bring new tablets to market,” said Jennifer Song, research analyst, Worldwide Trackers.

IDC reports RIM was able to grab 4.9% of the tablet market in 2011 with the introduction of their BlackBerry PlayBook. The report cites the PlayBook and iPad as the main factor for Android’s decreased market share, but with approximately 1 PlayBook to every 19 iPads shipped, we know it’s a lot more iPad and a lot less PlayBook.

An influx of $99 TouchPads (close to a million) will increase market share for WebOS to 4.7% by Q3. However, that share is obviously expected to be zero come Q1 2012 as vendors cease licensing the OS.

Cross-posted on 9to5Google.com