Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation, which is known all over the globe for its innovative and unique products. Several popular products of the second-largest information technology company of the world are the Mac computers, iPod music player, iPhone smartphone and the iPad tablet computer. Even though Apple’s iPhone had been bested by Samsung’s Galaxy S 3 in the smartphone market, no company had been able to affect the dominance of the Apple iPad in the tablet market. However, it seems that iPad’s lead is about to be over. It has been predicted by research firm IDC that shipments of the tablets powered by the Android operating system of Google Inc. would overtake that of the iPad.

International Data Corp has said that since the first iPad was launched in 2010, Apple Inc. had remained dominant in the tablet market, but now this market share will be chipped away by cheaper and smaller Android tablets from Amazon and Google Inc. as they will get more customers and catch up to the iPad. The shipments of both iPad and iPhone are expected to increase at enviable rates. However, Apple has been hurt by arch-rival Samsung through a solid combo of rapid technology adoption, better variety and savvy marketing.

With the current flagship Galaxy smartphone, the South Korean giant had been able to knock out the iPhone from the top rankings in 2012 and the company is now expected to unveil the fourth generation of the smartphone on Thursday. The shares of Apple Inc. have lost around a third of their value after they hit their all-time-high in September because of the growing pressure and reports that the iPhone manufacturer might actually be losing its competitive edge in the market. Peter Misek, analyst at Jeffries has said that the company co-founded by Steve Jobs is now on the defensive against the South Korean firm’s devices.

He compared the iPhone to BlackBerry and said that when device makers fall out of their favor, then they fall even faster and lower than expected. This was being applied to Apple in the smartphone market only, but from the information provided by IDC, it seems that the company might be losing some of its tablet lead as well, even though it remains on top amongst the manufacturers. In 2013, it is expected that the iPad shipments will be around 46% of the tablet market in comparison to the 51% they had last year.

As for devices that are powered by the Google Andorid operating system, they accounted for 42% of the total shipments of the tablet market last year, but are expected to increase their shipments to 49% this year. Kindle of Amazon Inc. and Google Nexus 7 tablet have their own customized Android operating systems and they made great inroads with customers in the previous year. Apple also made a foray into the small tablet market in November with the launch of the Apple iPad Mini. In a press release, IDC has said that the shipments of small tablets are expected to grow this year.

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