Android took 30% share of tablet sales in Q2 claims Strategy Analytics

But iPad remains top dog with a 61% share of the market, as BlackBerry PlayBook fails to beat Windows tabs.

Android tablets are on the march, according to the latest estimated sales figures published by Strategy Analytics, which thinks 15.1 million tablets shipped globally in Q2 this year.

The research firm thinks that Android captured a 30.1% share of those shipments, with 4.6 million units. That's still some way behind Apple's iPad, which sold 9.3 million units in Q2 for a 61.3% share, but represents growing momentum for the Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS.

Well, sort of. The figures refer to shipments rather than sales, so Strategy Analytics is not estimating how many of those devices ended up in the hands of consumers. Apple claims it is making iPads as fast as it can sell them, but with Android it's less clear how many are still on the shelves.

The report claims that 0.7 million tablets shipped in Q2 running a Microsoft OS, ahead of 0.5 million tablets running QNX - i.e. the BlackBerry PlayBook. That means a 4.6% share for Microsoft and a 3.3% share for RIM. The latter is still ramping up the global rollout of the PlayBook, so Q3's figures will be more useful in gauging how successful it is.

"Multiple Android models distributed across multiple countries by multiple brands such as Samsung, Acer, Asus, Motorola and others are driving volumes," says Strategy Analytics' Neil Mawston.