There’s a certain amount of “the sky is falling” hackery surrounding the iPad right now. Apple commanded a massive 94.3 per cent of the market not that long ago, when it was pretty much the only game in town. Now, according to sources such as T3, Apple’s share has dropped “as Android soars”.

The figures state Apple’s going to end up with 61.3 per cent of the market during Q2/11, with Android on 30.1 per cent. It’s notable that most Android figures appear to involve units shipped rather than sold, but let’s ignore that for a moment; let’s also ignore the fact that 61.3 per cent of the market is still massive. For me, the most interesting news is from HP, which has dropped the TouchPad’s price by $100.

When so-called ‘iPad killers’ first appeared, they were like little clones and also aped the iPad’s price, matching it as closely as possible. “Look! We’re just like the iPad in every way,” the rivals claimed, despite some of them being a wee bit smaller than Apple’s model (Engadget has a rather nice photo of the Galaxy Tab atop an iPad).

With the TouchPad, I think it’s a pity HP is attempting to fight the battle on price, because webOS is in many ways a very good system. But it’s an inevitability if a system doesn’t have the critical acclaim, popularity and ecosystem enjoyed by the likes of the iPad. Expect those rivals that haven’t dropped their price to follow suit soon; but when they do, bear in mind Apple’s been using its billions to buy up major components for tablets at the best possible price. This means while Apple could feasibly cut its tablet’s price and still make a massive profit, that’s certainly not the case for most other companies. And while in the world of PCs, massive sales sometimes led to at least some profitability, if you’ve only got a smallish share of the tablet market and are making naff-all profit per unit, you’re pretty much done for.