Android leaps ahead of Apple with 68 percent tablet market share during 2013

Android and Samsung Electronics reportedly emerged as the biggest winners in last year's tablet market with a 68 percent share of total sales.

According to market research company Gartner, 195.4 million units of tablets were sold to end users, following sales of low-end, smaller screen devices, and purchases by first time buyers.

With 62 percent of the market, Android turned out to be the biggest tablet operating system.

According to Greenbot, in 2012, Google's OS trailed Apple's iOS by a margin of about 8 million tablets, but by the end of last year had turned that into a 50 million-unit lead.

Samsung sold almost 121 million tablets with Android, for a 61.9 percent share, compared to 53.3 million units and a 45.8 percent share in 2012.

While the sale of Apple's tablets increased from 61.5 to 70.4 million units, the growth in overall market resulted in a drop in company's share from 52.8 percent to 36 percent.

Meanwhile, Apple's strong fourth quarter helped it maintain the top position among the manufacturers with Samsung occupying the second position recording 336 percent growth of the worldwide tablet vendors.