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Topic: Android

Kindle Fire owns over half of Android tablet market

Summary: The Kindle Fire burst onto the tablet scene a short time ago, and already owns over half the Android tablet market.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

There's a new king of the Android tablet market. It's not Samsung, Motorola, nor any of the expected players. According to the latest figures from ComScore the Kindle Fire from Amazon now owns over 54 percent of the Android tablet market.

This is no small feat given the short time the Kindle Fire has been on sale, compared to all of the other tablets. Amazon must be feeling pretty smug, having doubled its market share in just the last two months.

Even more telling in these latest numbers is that the previous leader of the Android tablet market is now in second place with only 15.4 percent of the market. More significantly the Samsung share is comprised of the entire Galaxy Tab product line.

Motorola has 7 percent share with the XOOM, while my personal favorite, the Transformer Prime, comes in fourth with a 6.3 percent share of the Android tablet market.

I've said it before -- the Android tablet partners not only have to watch Apple from afar, they have to compete with each other. Now it appears all but Amazon have to be content sharing an ever-shrinking market. It doesn't sound like much profit to go around for much longer.

It doesn't speak kindly for the Android platform, either. The Kindle Fire uses Amazon's derivative version of Android that looks nothing like the competition. Maybe that's significant too.

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Topics: Android, Hardware, Laptops, Mobility, Tablets

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41 comments
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  • Sad

    This means there are more Android tablets running Android 2.3 than either Honeycomb or ICS. At this point, why bother writing a tablet ICS app? Don't see how Google can spin this around as encouraging when they have no control of their platform. And Amazon can easily abuse it to serve their own needs.
    Jeff Kibuule
    Reply Vote

    • That is actually the strategy...

      ICS will have the lions share of phones in a few months and 720P will be the standard... Basically, something written for the phones will run on the Tablets.

      Sony upgraded the Tablet S today and Samsung has upgrades in the works for theirs... Coincidentally, the best selling Samsungs to this point are the 7 plus models.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

      • I tend to doubt in a few months since I watched

        a video showing new HTC phones and most off the new models just coming out were still NOT ICS but some other version mostly gingerbread. These were new phones yet to be released.

        Pagan jim
        James Quinn
        Reply Vote

      • Eggs; Basket; Again

        How many times do people have to make such statements as, "ICS will have the lions' share..." for the future only to see their hopes crash and burn in the flames of reality? Sure, advances in hardware and software will continue, but to expect any one of those improvements to have such an overarching effect is practical impossiblity.

        Look at where Android stands today. Where once all the other Android tablets stood alone against Apple's iPad and even in December held a 70.7% share against the Kindle Fire, they now only hold a 45.6 share and falling. Essentially, Android has become that Content Consumption device that they swore was the venue of the iPad alone while the iPad continues to outpace Android as a productivity tablet by huge numbers. Only by removing the Kindle version from the Android Army can Android claim to offer any competition to the iPad itself unless they want to lower themselves to that same irrelevance they claim belongs to the iPad.

        No, Android isn't going to die any time soon. However, Android needs the one thing Amazon is providing to offer a true competitor to the Apple ecosystem--integration with an overall platform. The problem is, Amazon's platform is selling Amazon products--not good when Android is trying to compete with Apple across the board.

        Until Android can offer a full integration platform across all levels of our digital world in a similar manner as Apple's iOS with OS X, the new Android tablets will compete most against each other while Apple leads the way.
        Vulpinemac
        Reply Vote

    • This is the problem with open-source software. Lots of innovations ...

      ... leads to lots of market fragmentation.

      Amazon's choice of Gingerbread was a good one. Their choice of price-point was brilliant. Like Apple, Amazon benefits from a robust ecosystem which can effectively subsidize that $200 price-point.

      There is no evidence that Amazon is abusing anything. They are simply selling a product at a price consumers are willing to pay.

      So is Apple but they are selling to buyers with more disposable income and who do not mind Apple's "gilded cage".
      M Wagner
      Reply Vote

    • Windows 7?

      So, people should not be writing for Windows 7 because it doesn't have the lion's share of the market?

      For how many years should developers ignore Windows 8?
      Regulator1956
      Reply Vote

      • Should they, or will they?

        You're right; developers should not be writing for Win7 now--they should be writing for Win8. The problem is, too many of them are still writing for XP instead because it is still the most popular (or was until recently) version of Windows in actual use (as compared to versions sold but maybe not used of later iterations.)

        How many years [i]will[/i] developers ignore Win8? That's a good question. I don't expect most of them to even consider it until they see how well Win8 will be adopted by their customers.
        Vulpinemac
        Reply Vote

  • Whither Nook?

    Was the Nook Color & reader not included in the survey as a "tablet" or were the numbers just too low to count?
    scottkoon
    Reply Vote

    • Must be in other

      This are actual devices so the Nooks must be in Other with very low numbers.
      JamesKendrick
      Reply Vote

    • Not counted???

      Certainly the Nook should have been one of the leading tablets. I think it was not counted, which was a mistake and very misleading.
      nookvine
      Reply Vote

      • Definitely not counted.

        I agree that they were likely not counted. Either because they thought it was pointless (incorrect) or the numbers weren't available. I recall reading that B&N was considering spinning off the Nook brand so they could report those earnings separately. You just don't do that with a weak-selling product.
        plainclothedman
        Reply Vote

    • Does the Nook run Android out of the box?

      Or is it using a proprietary OS instead? Chances are it's not counted because it doesn't come from the factory with Android.
      Vulpinemac
      Reply Vote

  • Android tablets are in a race to the bottom

    Amazon's 7-inch tablet is a shopping cart (to Amazon). If they release a 10-inch tablet later this year (think of a shopping cart for eTextbooks and magazines, amongst other things), their share of the Android market segment will continue to grow at the expense of OHA-manufactured 10-inch tablets. Decent tablets at a low price. Amazon's profits come from online retail sales and services.

    It appears that Google itself will soon engage Amazon in this race (who else can afford it?). Google's profits will be sourced from ads via Google Search along with Google Play.

    P.S. Am not saying that high-end Android tablets will entirely disappear. There will be a lot fewer models. Ditto for bottom-end tablets.
    Rabid Howler Monkey
    Reply Vote

    • I agree. The Kindle does so well not only because of

      the price, but also what it's sold as - a device used to access Amazon's vast array of books, ect. I think most people figure since they want a tablet to read and shop with at Amazon, why spend 499 for one that [b]may[/b] or [b]should[/b] work fine, when obviously the Kindle [b]will[/b] work fine.

      I'm not saying the high end Android tablets won't work good, they probally work just fine with Amazon, but if I was someone without a clue as to tablets, the obvious thought would be that "Amazon wouldn't sell a tablet that didn't work perfectly with their offerings", so people go with the sure bet.
      William Farrel
      Reply Vote

      • Brand plays a huge role....

        Consumers would rather go with the brand they are familiar with in an unfamiliar market. If you are not willing to spend $500 on an iPad then you go with the next familiar brand with the ecosystem, the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire.
        dave95.
        Reply Vote

      • Media consumption tablet

        As a media consumption tablet and online shop interface, the Kindle Fire is actually doing well.

        However, I believe the primary goal of Amazon is not to sell these tablets. They would rather prefer to convince Apple to let their Amazon app do the same thing on the iPad, because this will allow them to do what they know best: sell anything.
        danbi
        Reply Vote

  • As for James...

    More B S Skewed logic...

    Most fire owners are Kindle Fans and were never in the Apple or Android camp.

    This is a war of attrition and I can honestly see 7" Tablets becoming dominant.
    slickjim
    Reply Vote

    • iPad holdouts who know a good deal when they see it.

      I would disagree a bit. I think most Kindle owners are people who wanted a tablet like the iPad but either didn't want the size/fragility and/or didn't want to pay the huge price tag.
      technomom_z
      Reply Vote

      • Fragility? Huge? Perhaps I don't understand the meaning of these words?

        Pagan jim
        James Quinn
        Reply Vote

    • Not True

      I ended up winning a Kindle Fire at an auction, and love it. I wouldn't have purchased one otherwise. Because of the wide availability of apps it does everything I need it to in a very portable fashion - much more portable than an iPad. I just added Evernote and it's now my device of choice at conferences and seminars.
      kraabeasa
      Reply Vote
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