The Amazon Kindle Fire was an instant hit during the 2011 holiday season, selling an estimated 5 million tablets in just a few short months. The Kindle Fire just nudged past the Samsung Galaxy Tab line of products to represent 29 percent of all Android tablets, but the latest figures from comScore show Amazon is doing much better these days.
The Kindle Fire now accounts for 54 percent of Android tablets, according to comScore. The Galaxy Tab family, which previously dominated all competitors, now commands only 15.4 percent. Despite debuting in November 2011 with an unknown and heavily forked version of Android, the Kindle Fire has already outperformed all competitors. Motorola was first to sell the tablet-specific Android Honeycomb 3.0, but it has only 3 percent of the market.
It’s not surprising that Amazon is the most successful tablet maker in the United States. Samsung and Andy Rubin have already revealed that Android Honeycomb tablet sales have been disappointing. But to see a gulf this large between Amazon and Google-approved devices is rather is unexpected. The Kindle Fire is beating the collective might of all Honeycomb and later tablets.
Amazon has succeeded thanks to a $199 price that is one-third cheaper than competing products. It also helps that the company offers a top-to-bottom content strategy for getting apps, books, music, and video from one place. It’s the same strategy that Google has tried with the Play Store, but Amazon had a built in audience already buying that content, so it’s been easier to increase adoption. Amazon credited the Kindle Fire for an uptick in digital sales, and then promised to expand its content library as a result.
[comScore]
| U.S. Market Share of Android Tablets by Unique Devices Dec-2011, Jan-2012, Feb-2012 Total U.S. Source: comScore Device Essentials* |
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| % Share of Android Tablets | |||
| Dec-11 | Jan-12 | Feb-12 | |
| Amazon Kindle Fire | 29.4% | 41.8% | 54.4% |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab Family | 23.8% | 19.1% | 15.4% |
| Motorola Xoom | 11.8% | 9.0% | 7.0% |
| Asus Transformer | 6.4% | 6.2% | 6.3% |
| Toshiba AT100 | 7.1% | 7.0% | 5.7% |
| Acer Picasso | 6.0% | 5.2% | 4.3% |
| Acer Iconia | 2.8% | 2.6% | 2.1% |
| Dell Streak | 2.2% | 1.7% | 1.3% |
| Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 | 0.7% | 0.9% | 1.2% |
| Sony Tablet S | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.7% |
| Other | 8.9% | 5.6% | 1.6% |
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