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Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

Summary: New user statistics show the Amazon Kindle Fire is already taking over the Android tablet space. Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

Android tablet makers have been chasing the leader of the tablet pack, the iPad, for two years. New numbers that have been recently been collected show that the Amazon Kindle Fire is already taking over the Android tablet space. Samsung and friends better be fearing the Kindle Fire, not the iPad.

According to the new numbers from Flurry, the Kindle Fire has already dominated the Android tablet space, and not by a small margin. Tablet statistics are often questioned, as they usually track unit shipments and not sales. Flurry's numbers avoid that by tracking end user application sessions over time. These are strictly measuring what device is being used for actual user sessions, so the statistics are useful when comparing devices.

In November of last year, Samsung ruled the Android tablet roost with a full 63 percent of all end user sessions. The next three most used Android tablets, Acer Iconia Tab, Motorola XOOM, and ASUS Transformer Prime, only accounted for 30 percent of user sessions combined. The Kindle Fire was only used for a measly 3 percent of sessions, as it had only just arrived in town.

Fast forward to January of this year, only three months, and the numbers tell a vastly different story. The Samsung Galaxy Tab now only represents 36 percent of all user sessions, a giant drop. The Acer, Motorola, and ASUS now only account for 18 percent combined. The Amazon Kindle Fire, on the other hand, has now grabbed 36 percent of the end user application sessions. That's in less than three months.

Perhaps the most telling statistic in this analysis has to do with the Holy Grail of app developers, the paid app figures. When Flurry compares the Galaxy Tab family with the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Fire generated a whopping 2.5 times more paid app downloads than the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Amazon is firmly whooping the Android tablet pack in every category that matters, in only a few months.

With so many OEMs making Android tablets, they are really competing with each other more than with Apple's iPad. There are only so many sales to go around, and if the first three months are any indication the Kindle Fire is going to kick every Android tablet to the curb.

Topics: iPad, Android, Hardware, Laptops, Mobility, Tablets

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61 comments
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  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    Just wait until Amazon releases a 10-inch tablet (now that Google has open-sourced Ice Cream Sandwich).
    Rabid Howler Monkey
    Reply Vote

    • It is not all all clear that there is enough demand for a 10" tablet ...

      @Rabid Howler Monkey ... for Amazon to offer one. Nor is there any reason to think that Amazon would abandon Gingerbread or modify ICS for the Fire.
      M Wagner
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

      @Rabid Howler Monkey The whole premise of the article is a irrelevant because it's not a meaningful comparison for two reasons. First, the writer doesn't make a distinction of different tablet markets within Android. Something that doesn't yet exist with the iPad. If you want a tablet, but don't want a 9+" tablet, you wouldn't get an iPad, but you could choose from a number of different Android tablet makers including Amazon or Samsung and the price point would be lower too. Secondly, is the issue of how much the tablet market has grown. The overall tablet market has grown 280% in the last 12 months so that means the overall PIE is larger than a year ago. Again, the comparisons in the article are besides the point.

      By the way, he also doesn't mention that Apple's tablet market share has also gone down in the last year from 95% to 66%. And yet Apple sold more tablets than anyone, right? So what's the point of this article?
      mrxxxman
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

      @Rabid Howler Monkey Aparently you havent been reading the TABloids. ICS is billed as CRAP. At least from the reviews I have seen. While size might impress some...capabilities are often a better sell.
      eleaders
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    There are not a lot of apps for a 10 in screen size for Amazon to include in their app store.
    easy288
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    Good, original article. Way to go on finding this data!
    CJ135119F
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    Comparison between bananas and watermelons.<br><br>There are two markets for tablets: 7 inches and 10 inches. I will always have 2 sizes because the use is [b]very different[/b] . The data [i] should [/i] consider the number of owners with 2 tablets.
    Aristoteles Benicio
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    You forgot the Nook. Poor article.
    Marc12345
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

      @Marc12345 Wrong. The Nook wasn't mentioned because it doesn't even show up in the user statistics quoted.
      JamesKendrick
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

        @JamesKendrick
        Bit strange...
        Both are somehow comparable.But Amazon was able to catch mind share quite easily :|

        How ever B&N is keeping silent about its sales, so data is probably right.
        przemoli
        Reply Vote

    • No they didn't. The Nook was under "Other" ...

      @Marc12345 ... and therefore poses no threat to the other Android tablet players.
      M Wagner
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

    I was talking about the computer scene with a friend just last night. Despite our very different views, we agreed that:

    1. Everyone needs a phone and if you're going to have one then it may as well be smart: it should provide music, calendars, alarms, phone books, GPS, road maps etc. So you need an iPhone or a 3-4" Android phone.

    2. For content creation, you need either a desktop machine or a laptop (or both) so you'll probably need a MacBook Air or an Ultrabook with an 11-13" screen. (An iPad 2 with a BlueTooth keyboard and an HDMI-sized screen is quite a capable machine for content creation, but the screen is a little small in terms of pixels. Perhaps the iPad 3 will change that.)

    3. For reading (colour) magazines, textbooks with illustrations, books and for watching films &c. a 10" iPad or a Galaxy tablet is very nice.

    So we have three devices so far: a 3-4" phone; a 9-10" tablet and a 12-13" laptop.

    Why on earth would we want to add a 7" tablet-ette as well? If the Kindle Fire could be plugged into a screen and keyboard for use as a laptop (like the iPad 2-3) then I could see the point, but the Kindle Fire fails for web browsing, GPS, maps etc. because it lacks 3G connectivity.

    Three devices is already a real stretch, but four is absurd. I get by very well with a phone, and iPad and the desktop machine that I've had for years. For me, I can't see any room for a 7" device, let alone one without 3G connectivity.

    (I can just about see buying a 7" black and white Kindle for reading books on a hike that's a between 3-10 days long, because such devices are cheap enough to buy for this niche and they're the only readers with the necessary battery life. For shorter hikes and usual use the iPad is fine.)
    StandardPerson
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

      @StandardPerson

      Actually, you could possibly modify the phone specs. If you can use the tethering capability to hook up the tab and the phone, then possibly you can economize on the phone.

      Though I agree that a minimum of 3 devices are required at the moment.
      crystalsoldier
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

        @crystalsoldier
        A minimum of 3 devices.. really? So why is it I am a research scientist and don't seem to NEED a smart phone nor a tablet?
        mikejwatson
        Reply Vote

      • Putting research scientist after your name doesn't necessarily

        impress. I've seen what passes for research these days.
        baggins_z
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

        @crystalsoldier
        At the end of the day, let's remember that there's a distinction between 'stuff you want' and 'stuff you need'. While all of the items discussed are desirable, none of them are, as you put it, 'required'.
        Theseus
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

        @crystalsoldier
        @mikejwatson
        The word 'need' is so wrong. I still have very little use for a tablet, and I do like my mobile phones to be very quiet if I am not working. My laptop had the storage capacity and processing grunt to serve up work and entertainment needs.
        strangefruit
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

      @StandardPerson
      Replace 9' tablet with 7' tablet.

      PDF reading is impaired a bit but you can deal with it, and if it means 50% cheaper tablet...
      przemoli
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Forget the iPad, Android tablet makers better fear the Kindle Fire

        @przemoli

        People are often obsessed with price difference. But how often do you buy an tablet? A good one, like the iPad will surely last you at least two years. So a price difference of $300 for two years is what? $12 per month?

        If you for some reason have the urge to replace the device sooner, then you probably have the respective justification and the price does not matter much.

        As I see things, the cheap tablets are good for first time buyers or if you buy the thing for specialized content consumption.
        danbi
        Reply Vote

    • Tablets need screens big enough for magazines & regular web-sites

      @StandardPerson: I like that analysis. To put it another way, an important sweet spot for tablets is having a screen big enough to give a good experience reading magazines (not just the reflowed text of novels) and reading and navigating standard web-sites (not simplified, downsized, more limited versions designed for phones).

      The evidence so far suggests that 10" works much better than 7". Even the Kindle Fire's healthy sales so far leave 10" selling in far greater numbers than 7", despite the 7" Fire's price advantage.
      bjl17
      Reply Vote
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