Android Tablets: Catching Up in 2012

By JENNA WORTHAM


Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg News


The Sony Tablet S, left, and the Sony Tablet P, both of which run Android’s operating system.

BARCELONA — Android still has a lot of catching up to do with Applewhen it comes to the tablet market.

But Andy Rubin, the head of Android at Google, said in a small roundtable session with reporters at the Mobile World Congress that 2012 would be the year that “we double down in that space.”

He said that although there were 300 million smartphones running Android, the number of tablets running Android is only a fraction of that figure, around 12 million. By comparison, Apple has sold more than 55 million iPads to date.

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That figure is not as high as it needs to be “if we want to be successful,” he said.

The main hurdle for Android’s broader adoption, he said, is that customers don’t yet view it as a viable platform.

Rather, they “walk into a Best Buy and see a bunch of Android tablets on display,” he said. “There’s no organized way for consumers to see it as an ecosystem.”

Still, Mr. Rubin said there were glimmers of hope for the Android tablets, in particular the Galaxy series from Samsung, which he said had been the most successful tablet release running on Android.

He said that Google would focus more this year on making the Android system a more compelling investment for both mobile shoppers as well as a lucrative business opportunity for third-party applications developers.

“We need to make sure we have a more complete offering,” he said.