We’ve written about how the 2011 gift-giving holiday season was something of a sea change for tablets and eBooks, but a new bit of research from comScore concluded that it was more one sided than you might have thought. According to them, of all the Android-powered tablets in the U.S., 54.4% of them are Kindle Fires. Though great for Amazon, that could be a problem for Google.
A distant second to the Fire was the entire line of Samsung Galaxy Tab devices, which account for 15.4% of total Android usership in the U.S.. Aside from those two, no other company managed to break the 10% mark; the Motorola Xoom took 7%, and several more places down the list was Sony’s Tablet S with 0.7%.
The data for this study was gathered in February of this year and shows that Amazon has not only managed to double its percentage, but that other Android tablets dropped in the same time frame. The Samsung Galaxy Tab line, for instance, made up 23.8% of Android users in December 2011, and nearly half that by February 2012.
While an interesting look at Android use in the U.S., it should be noted that the Kindle Fire has no distribution deal in other countries. So while these U.S. numbers are interesting, and a critical market for consumer electronics, the rest of the world could be a very different story.
For Amazon, this is great news. Though the Fire still trails the iPad, its proven to be a strong competitor. With a rumored expansion of the Kindle line, and a forthcoming backlit eInk display, Amazon will likely be entering this holiday season with confidence.
However, not everyone is probably happy about Amazon’s success. Electronista points out that this data shows that the most popular Android tablet does not have an official Google interface, access to the Play store, or other moneymaking channels that have been the cornerstone of Google’s entire Android strategy. It’s not clear how much this is affecting the search giant, but it seems likely that that Google will be introducing new tablets that can compete at the Fire’s $199 pricepoint.
Of course, a slew of new feature-heavy and cheap tablets will probably sound great to consumers, too.
(Electronista via Techmeme)
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- One or more of them may be these awesome illuminated eInk Kindles
- Do not discount the Nook
