The iPad 3 is almost set for release. Apple’s iPad is considered as the king of tablets and a recent analysis from Forrester Research has once again affirmed the same. Despite the many tablets that have released with Google’s Android, the iPad continues to dominate the tablet sector with more than 73% market share. Research shows that no Android vendor has more than a 5% share against it.
Forrester’s market research was carried out last September. This was before the release of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and also before the release of Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet, their reply to the Kindle Fire. Both these tablets have influenced the market to a great extent, so the research doesn’t represent the exact true picture without the inclusion of these tablets. Both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet (Barnes and Noble) use modified versions of Android.
The analysis estimated Samsung’s share at 5%, Motorola at 4%, Acer at 3% and HP’s discontinued Touchpad at 6%. There have been speculations about what the list would look like if the Kindle Fire was included in it, but even now such speculations are not of much help as the numbers published by Amazon aren’t concrete. The company has not released the exact sales figures of the Kindle Fire, and the numbers which were released included the entire Kindle line. A mobile analyst has suggested that the Kindle Fire sold almost four million units in the 4th quarter of 2011 alone. This puts the Fire at second place after Apple’s iPad 2. There are others who speculate that Amazon may have sold over 6 million units of the Fire.
Forrester has predicted that Amazon will continue to show progressive growth if it continues with its strategy. The reason why most Android tablets fail to compete against the iPad is because the former lack any unique characteristics in comparison to each other, even though they are on par with the pricing, and usually cheaper. The e-reader-cum-tablet effect hasn’t laid a dent on Apple’s share yet, but the Fire is bound to replace e-readers around the globe. This move is bound to help Apple as well because people will now expect more from a portable device thus turning heads towards the iPad 3. The market is open for change and Forrester believes that about 1/3rd of the US adult population will have the iPad before 2016.
Buy the Kindle Fire for $199
Buy the Nook Tablet starting at $199 for 8GB, and $249 for 16GB.
