Microsoft recently slashed prices of its Surface RT tablet by nearly $150 dollars, after reporting a $900 million dollar loss for its Surface devices during its quarterly earnings report recently. According to new data, Windows 8 and Windows RT based tablets account for 4.5% of the global tablet market as of Q2 2013.
Strategy Analytics cites a shortage of apps as a problem for the weak market share. The agency also adds that developers have little incentive to create apps for the platform.
“Microsoft captured a niche 4.5 percent global tablet share in Q2 2013. There may be an uptick in Windows RT shipments in Q3 following savage price cuts by all the partners still involved in the RT Market. Microsoft has reduced prices by $150 and other vendors even more; they are still not cheap, but are much more where they should be to compete. The shortage of apps continues to be a problem, with seemingly little incentive for developers to work on the platform,” Strategy Analytics reported.
Overall global tablet shipments reached 51.7 million units during Q2 2013. Android held a 67% global tablet market share while Apple’s iPad dropped to 28%. Windows also saw a decline but is now holding a 4.5% global market share. Android is making quite a bit of progress thanks to hardware partners such as Samsung, Amazon, and Google. Microsoft’s Windows (Windows 8 and Windows RT), on the other hand, sold 2.3 million tablets during the second quarter of 2013.
