Really??
I believe this as much as I believe the Unicorn story, I saw thousands of 7" and 10" tablets on sale in China's computer and electronics markets last year, but not one iPad outside of an "iStore".
Apple may be struggling to maintain its huge market share in the tablet space globally, but it remains top dog by some margin in China, where the latest stats show it on 71.4 per cent. Beijing-based analyst house Analysys International’s figures reveal that the tablet market in the People’s Republic is booming, with 2.6 …
"could run Android on iPad hardware they would but the iPad"
Who are this 'they' you speak of?
Are they the seemingly countless millions of individuals you have never met and no little or nothing about? Do you have facts and figures to define your proposition? If so present them, otherwise anyone with an IQ above zero will simply dismiss your comments as irrelevant bias and tripe.
China has a huge population - the reality is most cannot probably afford either tablets or high end phone. Samsung phones and tablets are only slightly cheaper than equivalent Apple models anyway - certainly the difference is close enough that if you wanted an iPad you would save up a bit longer for one.
"fighting hard for market share with cheaper alternatives" wtf?
The biggest problem the competitors have is that their alternatives do not represent a significantly cheaper value proposition, and in many cases do not even represent a cheaper ¤ price. The fact that it turns out that people rather like iOS on tablets and the application availability is good only makes it harder for Apple's competitors.
For those that haven't tried the iPad mini, I suggest you give it a test drive. Apple have clearly done their homework and it is an excellent, dare I say it ideal ca. 7" device. I myself was surprised how good it is for the form factor. (and no, I don't give a FF about hardware specs and neither do most users).
Dweeb
Since no Android handset/tablet maker actually breaks its sales figures out to the level you need the analysts are mostly just making this stuff up.
IDC's figure have been shown to be off so often, by such huge margins, that they must surely be being paid by Samsung or Google or someone to put out misleading figures (or Samsung's trade loading is epic). For example an IDC report for the tablet market stated that Samsung sold 2,391,000 tablet computers worldwide in Q2 2012, up 117.6% from the same quarter last year. Yet according to Samsung’s court filing in the Samsung vs. Apple case for the same quarter, it sold a total of 37,000 infringing Android tablets in the U.S. last quarter, down 86% year over year. So if Samsung really sold 2.4 million tablets in the quarter, as IDC claims (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23632512), 1.5% were sold in the U.S. with the other 98.5% made up of overseas sales, and/or non-infringing tablets such as the Windows-based Series 7 slate. Which is possible, but seems like a bit of a stretch.
The usage stats are clearly wrong. The biggest flaw is they only look at the stock browser (which isn't mandatory on Android), so it fails to include Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Dolphin and Boat browsers..
I use my Android tablet for surfing every night, but I use Opera Mobile on Android, so i'm not included in their headline grabbing stats.