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HP Takes the Number 2 Spot of Tablets (non-iPad) Sold in the US

By: Jesse Mendoza, 11/22/2011 4:53 pm | 52 comments

In a report from NPD, we have learned that HP was king of the non-Apple tablets during the first ten months of this year. Only 1.2 million tablets were sold this year that were not from Apple. Gobbling up 17% of the other tablet marketshare was HP and its webOS TouchPad. This equates to 204,000 sold between launch and October. The firesale certainly helped propel HP to the top of this list by beckoning consumers with low prices.

Samsung just missed out on the lead by garnering 16% of the market. The embarrassing 192,000 showed that not even a high quality tablet line with the (second) best hardware and firm OS could capture the attentions of consumers. Samsung has apparently been extra quite about shipment number since the launch of its new tablets. Generally this isn’t a very good sign.

Everyone else came in much lower:
ASUS 120,000
Acer, Motorola: 108,000 (each)

It’s worth noting that sales for Android tablets have been increasing quarter by quarter. Clearly consumers are more aware of Android tablets in the market and what they can do. Also, many consumers will consider going an alternate route just to not purchase an Apple product. Black Friday deals will certainly open the eyes of many consumers out there looking to purchase tablets in the holiday season. These consumers certainly will be factoring in the Amazon Kindle Fire at $200. We should see a large shit up in Android tablet marketshare after that point. However, we believe that tablet shipments across the other manufacturers will only increase slightly. This will be the case until someone else figures out the sweet spot for non-iPad tablet pricing.

Does this report mean that HP should keep webOS? Does it mean that consumers bought the tablet just for the OS? We’d like to believe that consumer interest in webOS would rise if they got to use the OS. However, we understand that the rapid sellouts of HP’s tablet were due to the price, not the OS. We would love to see webOS get jump-started on a quality hardware platform with a legitimate marketing campaign. Either way, the stats are something we will keep an eye on as the holiday season progresses.

Author: Trevor Moore for mobileRoundup

Source: The Verge

About Jesse Mendoza

Certified Computer Geek by day, WOR contributor & radio DJ by night. Loves indie music, Toyoto FJ Cruisers, and running marathons. He still owns all of his Palm devices and will probably go to the grave with them. Follow him on Twitter @JesseJstreet

View all posts by Jesse Mendoza →

PalmOn

And what percentage of those webos TouchPads sold were sold to people looking to put android onto them?

Anonymous

A million billion percent of course.

ajguns

Sorry, but a wouldn’t in a THRILLION years buy a TouchPad to put Android onto it. Instead I would buy an iPad2 or Samsung GT 10.1 to put WebOS on them! That’s more like it.
– sent from webOSroundup XL

Xavier Garcia

I should of got a touchpad … Would like to run webos and droid on it systematically

Anonymous

Who knows? There was an unofficial survey over at PreCentral and the numbers were surprisingly low. Some folks who bought it just for CM7 decided to use webOS instead. I came from an Android tablet to the TouchPad and I hope HP gets their act together so I don’t have to go back.

Anonymous

But the issue is those who use CM7 usually goes to XDA Developers instead.

So I wouldn’t exactly call that accurate.
Briancornerbrook

I have CM7 and it does open doors to say the very least ie. Tons of native to web site software like PayPal, YouTube and E-bay etc etc in actual app format, not just a script that opens the browser window as so many do in WebOS …. App support will ultimately decide … And the release next year of CM8 for TouchPad.

Pierre Rumenigay Chery

Ah…Webos might have a future after all :)
After the selective survey By HP, and these new numbers I will not be surprise if TP or /and Webos survive. And I also think that our community is playing a big part of it.

MPM

I hope you are right. I can’t imagine being stuck using piece of crap Android Apple or Blackberry. Those platforms are a complete joke compared to webOS. I just don’t get it how HP screwed this up!!

tt92618

If you think that iOS is “a complete joke”, that only means you haven’t got the ability to look at the situation objectively. It’s manifestly obvious that neither Android nor iOS are ‘a joke’. As a matter of fact, given that iOS and Android are both on more devices than WebOS makes your comment all the more suspect.

As a developer, I will say that I was jazzed about WebOS… but the best development tools by far are offered by Apple. The android SDK is very messy.

In any case, comparing the platform with barely more than 1% of the market and calling the others a ‘joke’ is the height of hubris.

Anonymous

I’m not normally one to point out typo’s, but there is one that may need attention in the 4th block of text:

“We should see a large ‘expletive’ up in Android tablet marketshare after that point.”

Mtv757

i commented on this and wrote that same line but then it said that it wont be posted until reviewed by a moderator
Palmfan

I also like “Toyota” in the about author section

http://twitter.com/TheTechChat TheTechChat

Sorry, guys, but those numbers are terribly suspect. It’s been pretty much confirmed that ASUS sold at least a million Transformers, and no matter how you spin it there’s no way that ASUS sold only 120K units. They shipped over 700K units over the summer when the Transformer was sold out everywhere and on perpetual backorder.

So, that fact alone makes me seriously question this information. Throw in the fact that the last Android numbers showed Android 3.X with about 1.8% of the installed base of, at the time, 150 million Android devices and you come up with over 2.5 million devices in use. By now, that has to be over 3 million units.

Perhaps this means that HP sold somewhat more than this study shows, but there’s no way HP sold more than, say, ASUS.

Pierre Rumenigay Chery

These numbers are form Jan to Oct 2011…It was a suprise for me too. So far i beleive them…But I’m waiting for confirmation from a friend of mine at the NPD Group.

http://twitter.com/TheTechChat TheTechChat

From Jan to Oct, those numbers are wrong. Flat-out. Again, ASUS sold a boatload of units over the summer (at least), and so by themselves they probably exceeded the numbers NPD is throwing out for the non-iPad market as a whole.

And the 1.8% of 150 million (which might be a low estimate given that Google has said 200 million Android devices have activated) was at the beginning of October. At the beginning of November, it was 1.9%, meaning it could be as many as 3.8 million units. And, finally, that’s just Honeycomb tablets, not to mention other versions of Android.

No matter how you shake it, there’s no way that only 1.2 million non-iPad tablets were sold up to October of this year. Absolutely no way.

http://www.webosroundup.com/ David

NPD isn’t known for their incorrect information…
Pierre Rumenigay Chery

Got confirmation! The report is for the top 5 RETAIL sales. It coming from someone that worked on it. Also I agree with David..NPD doesn’t put out false info like that

Falconap

Agree. The numbers are also clearly wrong with respect to the number of TouchPads sold as it was clearly in the 1 million plus range (BB alone had 275k of them). The numbers for Android are probably in the 3-4 million range, which also shows just how stupid HP was to give up so soon. They are still the number 3 tablet OS and within striking range of number 2. If they had released the TouchPad Go and continued to work on a newer TouchPad (thinner, lighter, faster, more RAM) they could have stood a chance. Throw in releasing the Pre 3 and getting a slab phone out…well, we know this story don’t we?

Anonymous

I definitely agree. I believe that the price point is in the $200-300 range, which makes sense. I believe that consumers feel that tablets shouldn’t cost more than Netbooks. They need to get cut-throat with their suppliers and manufacturers to
drive production cost down (Apple does it even though they sell their
hardware at a premium) to eventually make a profit on the hardware.

Anonymous

HP own financial report released on the 21st of November shows sales of the TouchPad at $200 million dollars. Unless TouchPads sold at an average cost of $980 per unit, HP had to have sold well over 1 million TouchPads (at the fire sale price). That is just basic math. I don’t think any Android tablet sold that well or we would have heard about it by now. Shipped numbers and sales numbers are two different things.
Oheneaku

Shipments don’t mean sales. ASUS may very well have shipped 1m to distributors, but until the folks in the channel report actual purchases, shipments mean nothing.
bytex64

Also, where is RIM on that list?
– sent from webOSroundup XL

Sexynana

if you mention ‘Non Ipad’ then ur title shoud state #1 and not #2

tt92618

That’s not correct, because WebOS is a platform, and Android is a platform. Thus, it isn’t about the hardware sales of any single manufacturer, it is about the platform sales. That makes HP second in the non-iPad market, and a distant second at that. Giving the thumbs up because your platform captured 17% of the market after a 5 billion dollar loss and the cessation of all hardware development is not really the kind of celebrating business folks usually do.

MPM

I hope you are right. I can’t imagine being stuck using piece of crap Android Apple or Blackberry. Those platforms are a complete joke compared to webOS. I just don’t get it how HP screwed this up!!
Caligulae

These numbers just show where the price range should be. Consumers are not ready to pay more than $199 for a tablet, no matter what brand or OS…
– sent from webOSroundup XL

tt92618

That’s pretty much a ridiculous statement. Apple sold around 25 million iPads in the fiscal year ended September first (that averages to more than 2 million per month), at a base price of $499. That tells me that consumers are more than ready to pay more than $199 for a tablet device, they just aren’t ready to pay more than $199 for a device that isn’t an iPad.

chemicalguy

now you have 2 million users , re-launch the new webOS and the Touchpad 2 , I love my TP and use it at home and for work, no need to take that clunky laptop on the road.

MPM

I agree 100%

http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

Sorry folks these numbers are a Fluke for HP, they only reason WebOS is on number 2 spot was and only is the Fire sale of the Touchpad for 99$, does not mean that HP should not re-launch WebOS, but i think we should not take to much in with those numbers and be real for a moment.

Anonymous

There are cheap Android tablets around that price also. Why are they not in the number 2 spot?

http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

Tell me what Cheap Android Tablet is there for 99$ ?

Anonymous

Just Google it, then click on shopping. I found several for under $100.

http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

Ahh you mean those E-Readers, Well if you want to consider something like that as a Tablet then be my guess, but i still stand the number 2 Spot a Fluke, if you drop something from 500$ down to 99$, since the Touchpad is pretty much been compared to the iPad2 Hardware wise, so it’s pretty much a sweet deal and a muss buy,

Anonymous

There are cheap Android tablets around that price also. Why are they not in the number 2 spot?

Moi

The BIGGEST takeaway from this that I see is that a company with just about zero advertising,not to mention mindshare (average consumer probably never heard of them) *ASUS* grabbed 10% of the market.

They truly do build,sell, and most importantly support the best Android tablet.

MPM

I have an Asus computer. Absolutely awesome and reliable. Imagine webOS on Asus. What a dream

Too bad they are using the biggest piece of overhyped crap called Android. Android is garbage and just plain sucks!!

Anonymous

Android doesn’t suck. Android on tablets suck. The problem is that most Android devices run 2.x, which was not made for tablets. It is made for phones. The apps are also not made for tablets either. Sure they stretch, but they look crappy when they do. Honeycomb was not released to everyone so it doesn’t count. ICS is out, but it will take some time for it to make it to the masses. Android on tablets seems to always be a bride’s maid. Never a bride.

I think webOS is better suited for phones and tablets then Android. Too bad Palm/HP did not make decent phone hardware.

Tonymac

I have multiple ASUS devices. They are well known for everything from netbooks to gaming motherboards. They make great stuff.
– sent from webOSroundup XL

Justin

Haha… I love the part where it says, “We should see a large sh*t up in Android tablet marketshare…”
Deane

Goes to show the more people with Webos in their hands the more people fall in love with it like I did. I just hope meg/hp is keeping a heads up on this trend!
Otrain

My Pre2 is dieing a slow death. Randomly restarts. I hate admit I have a iphone 4 being delivered. :( damn you hp!
tt92618

I think the elephant in the room, here, is that these figures exclude the iPad. I see quite a few arguments here about how Asus scored 10% of ‘the market’, etc. but such figures are misleading.

If you factor in Apple’s iPad sales over the same period, what is really obvious here is that every manufacturer is getting decimated by the iPad. iPad sales for the fiscal year ended September were around 25 million units. So, in the same 10 month period, you can figure that out to be around 20.1 million units. If the NPD figures are to be believed, that means Apple captured slightly less than 95% of all tablet sales, and the figures you guys are squabbling about here reflect only the remaining 5% of the market.

To crystalize just what this means, these figures, if accurate, indicate that HP managed to capture just .009% of the total tablet market, even with the fire sale, and every other competitor was south of that. Asus, for example, came in at around .006%. That’s so tiny it is essentially insignificant.These figures are abysmal, no matter how you cut it. There is no way a manufacturer, especially those myopically focussed on the near term as HP and most of the others are, can see this as a viable business. I think, therefore, that the handwriting is pretty much on the wall at this point. We are likely to see many of the current competitors bow out of this market in 2012, and I would be very surprised if HP decides to do anything substantive at all with WebOS.

That’s of course true only if the NPD numbers are correct, and they may not be. But if they are, this is a stunning crash and burn scenario and it may explain why Leo ran screaming for the hills not long after the initial debut of TouchPad – maybe he wasn’t as dumb as we all gave him credit for being.
Deane

Sounds like you work for apple & have no clue what Webos is all about. Speaking of crashing & burning now that your leader is MIA/RIP, it migjt be a dismal market for apple as well. Competition is a hard concept for APPLE to swallow!

tt92618

A) I don’t work for Apple.
B) I think competition is a good thing.C) Facts are facts, and right now, the fact is that HP spent 5 or more billion dollars in order to capture less than 1% of the total tablet market. That’s a stunning failure by any metric, and acknowledging it is just realism, not some kind of clueless banter.You seem like you are really emotionally vested in the product, and I understand that. But that emotional tie doesn’t change the reality of the situation. If you had ever read any of my posts here, you would know that I admire WebOS a great deal, and I was very critical of HP’s decision to kill the hardware business. Unfortunately, however, WebOS products have not been a success in the marketplace. If the NPD numbers are accurate, at best WebOS was the leader among a herd of dismal failures – and that’s nothing to cheer for.

I’m sorry it upsets you – I truly am. My sense is that the reality is that the market has moved on. The wheel has turned, and WebOS is essentially dead. If Amazon buys it, we might see a rebirth, otherwise, WebOS is a beautiful failure.

Sorry about that – truly.

Mike Poole

webOS is not dead,its all about education and not being taken in by Microsoft and apple due to following the crowd like sheep really.

tt92618

Mike, you aren’t looking at these numbers very carefully.

Much has been made, here, of the fact that by percentage, HP was at the top of the list, and folks have basically been doing the touchdown dance and shouting “booyah, webOS is number one!” The analysis, including that made by the author of the article, has been very simplistic: “Hp was at the top of the list in terms of percent, so the WebOS platform was tops. Booyah!”

The problem is, that’s not actually what these numbers say; the NPD numbers say Android was the number one platform in non-iPad tablets, not WebOS. In fact, they say that WebOS as a platform reflected only 17% of all non iPad tablets, and only .009% of the total market by platform. That’s awful, really.

You talk about this as an education problem, but it isn’t at all: it’s an investment problem, and the metric HP is calculating right now, plus the metric others are no-doubt computing, revolves around how much investment it will need as a platform in order to be sustainable and in order to really compete.

When I look at these numbers, I personally think its a stretch to think that anyone looking hard at the numbers will conclude that WebOS is a good investment. First, even after HP spent north of 5 billion dollars on it, it still only captured 17% of the non-iOS market. Second, there is a 10,000 lb gorilla lumbering into the market soon in the form of Windows 8. Against that, I can’t see how any of these businesses would think it rational to commit to WebOS.

I’ve said this before, but it bears saying again: I really like WebOS. I think it is a brilliant body of work in many ways, especially Enyo. And I think that maybe if HP hadn’t torched all of the work they had in process to build an eco-system for it for content and services… it might have been more of a contender. But those are might have been’s and maybes’. The market picture for it right now is far clearer, and much much less appealing.

I think Amazon could do something brilliant with WebOS; they already have the sort of content eco-system these devices need in order to be appealing to consumers (which is why Kindle Fire has eclipsed these NPD numbers in just 1 month). But you have to ask why Amazon would do that. Amazon is, first of all, treating these devices as platforms through which to sell more content. Their hardware and platform software groups (OS and custom software) operate at a loss, and are projected to continue doing so for at least the next few years. So, what interest is there for them in switching from the Android base they’ve already invested into, towards something that will cost them more money and get them to where they are now? Maybe the number would make sense stacked up against Android licensing fees over time – I don’t know. It doesn’t look very promising from my backseat driver’s position, though.

I personally hope Amazon buys WebOS. If they do, I think WebOS will have a strong shot at being around for a long time. When Amazon gets tired of losing money to sell content, they might even start turning their device division profitable, and that would be even better for WebOS in such a scenario.

I don’t see WebOS making it under most other scenarios really.

Just my 2 cents worth.

http://twitter.com/2254 Michael Marr

App sales will determine the continued viability of webOS, not the number of $99 webOS devices in hands. There’s probably several million, working Treos and Centros out there, too (I have 3), but there’s no more continuing income stream in those legacy devices. And then there’s my buggy Palm Pre+ that was replaced first by a Samsung Captivate and recently by an iPhone 4S.

tt92618

The picture is more complicated than the one you paint.

First, without the addition of new hardware for the platform to run on, the platform is doomed and it doesn’t matter if there are 10 apps for it or 10,000. The pace of change in this market is so fast that in just a few years all of the TouchPads in existence will be obsolete, and in a few years beyond that they will almost all be sitting in a box on a shelf and / or be in a landfill or inside another product (having been recycled). Think about it – iPhone 1 was introduced in 2007, and at the time, there wasn’t a single Android device on the market and WebOS was just a glimmer in its designers eyes (if that). Here we are just four calendar years later and we have gone through FIVE iPhone iterations and now we have a glut of Android devices, WinPhone7, Win 8 just around the corner, and WebOS came on the scene and… ahem. Anyway, the point is that the pace of change is ferocious and none of these devices have much long so.

Second, the viability of the platform is tied to how well HP continues to push it forward, and although HP says they are doing so, I see no evidence that this is continuing in fact. HP effectively stopped doing anything to build a content eco-system for the device. Again, without continued development of the platform, it won’t matter how many apps there are.

I think that the number of Apps is a selling point for consumers, so indirectly it influences the success of a platform in the market. But without the two very important pillars I mention above, WebOS as a platform cannot stand.

tt92618

And that was “none of these devices have much longevity” – sorry for the typo.

Stefan

If hp can work on web os to be better, in can be a serious competition in the tablet market… I like they way the software is build and have to say that with some little tweaks it’s fast. To bad I don’t have the same amount of apps to download like on android… For the moment I’m not into android on the touchpad…but 4.0 would be nice to have…
– sent from webOSroundup XL

HP Takes the Number 2 Spot of Tablets (non-iPad) Sold in the US

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