Amazon's Kindle Fire gains marketshare at expense of iPad over holidays, research shows - Page 2

web browsing only checked as they don't have access to app usage.

With 86% of the market and other manufacturers releasing any competing product, the only way to go is down so this poll simply backs up this fact.

They may have sold a lower market share percentage wise than previous but likely they increased sales.

 

I saw the playbook for $99 at my local Staples. Even at that price I didn't bite. 

OMG! the sky is falling!! only 78% of the biggest tablet sales total - at premium prices - EVER!!!

 

well, it could be worse. it could be 0.4%. oh wait - that's the Zune Surface tablet. that's taken. maybe that's the real story here?

 

AI, really - really - you have to stop hit-whoring with these stupid headlines we see lately.

And one month later, expect all those kindles to be 2nd-hand gifts, gathering dust in a desk drawer, used as a door stop, or landfill material.

The moment the novelty wears off, most those folks will probably realize that it's a crippled iPad.

Let's see.... 78 percent versus 7 1/2 percent ???

Today AND ALL OF THE NEXT YEAR I don't care and neither should anyone else !!!

Sheer idiocy.

Excellent PR spin. May I suggest, "The margin of error is 5% so that means actually ~no~ Android tablets were used for web browsing".

"10 Billion activations a day" -- Andy Andy

"They've all changed the user agents on their browsers."

I find this kind of article rather baffling. For a couple of years iPad was the only tablet which was a viable product, so its market share was close to 100%.

Is it actually newsworthy to say that iPad's market share is decreasing in the situation where the market is only just beginning to exist? Arguably there wasn't a tablet market until very recently, just an iPad market.

To say that Kindle Fire won market share at the expense of iPad is a big 'duh' to me. What would be more interesting would be its effect on the growth in market share of the other non-iPad tablets.

Ultimately it would be expected that as the competition release viable tablets (and there is no sustainable competitive advantage through 'specs') that Apple's market share will fall to a proportion similar to that it achieves in the smartphone market, maybe 50% eventually lower than that.

Clearly its an interesting thing to monitor how fast Apple's market share falls, but realistically that isn't surprising.

As the market grows in overall size we'll see an interesting battle for second place. That's where I'd like more stats, how is Amazon faring against Nexus and Samsung... thats more fascinating to me.

Sorry, but...

 

Duh!!!

 

Of course this is going to happen over the holiday week. Everyone got shiny new presents that they're playing with. This time next month those stats will revert back to what they were before the holidays.

Then... in a couple weeks Apple will tell us that they sold tens of millions of iPads this past quarter... while we're still guessing how many Kindles Amazon sold.

"Kindle Fire gains market share over iPad" will be a shortlived celebration.

This bad news is pushing the shares up, bring it on!

Uh huh. Apple has 78% market share - with the largest competitors being the low end cheap segment where Apple doesn't compete. So Apple probably has 90% of the premium tablet sales (the segment where they compete).

And Android is winning.

Yep, you sure told us. /s

 

You really think so? I think there will be a low-end tablet market - there's a large group of people for whom even $329 is more than they can afford for a tablet. I don't doubt Apple's ability to do well for years to come in the premium sector, and now mid-sector with the mini. 

 

Obviously the data is of very limited use. The interesting points for me were the lack of penetration of the Surface despite very heavy advertising.

 

And the data shows that in the non iOS segment Kindle Fire is doing well against Google Nexus & Samsung Galaxy pad. It confirms the anecdotal evidence I get in the UK that among those who are buying budget tablets, Amazon is the favoured brand. Presumably this is because of Amazon's good reputation as a internet mail-order reseller, and good experience with Kindles as a single purpose eReader.

Aye - "A study of web usage" - so people, quickly, how many of you iPad users actually see or click on any of those ads on webpages?  I don't due to I use a different browser that blocks all those ads, I never see them.  And most times I change what I am reporting as, as well.  Not showing my browser type as Safari Mobile all the time.  I see more ad's in apps then on webpages.

 

My questioning would be, on all those Fire's, what was the normal Kindle's numbers for the month beforehand???  I knew a few people still using the old Kindle(s) and was going to upgrade this year after the holiday's if Santa did not bring them one of the new Fire's.   Or even better yet, the main question is what the numbers looked like for the first two weeks compared to the last two. Also, what websites are you reporting from?  Cause I know I have a certain set of bookmarks I go to, and most of them are not mainstream style ones like Yahoo.com or anything.  Most of my news and stuff comes from apps.  There are day's I don't even go on web, I use my apps, read my books, etc.

 

Bottom line - who bloody cares about these numbers, just grab other numbers and throw them into a chart.  Web useage/ads is a very bad indicator for marketshares why, because unless every person with every device goes to certain webpages each day, your numbers are wrong.  It's like trying to prove who has more ticket sales for airlines, without actually looking at the sales, but looking and counting people at the gates.

 

Not "all" by any means.  They are what they are.   Don't assume that EVERYONE buying a Kindle or Nook thinks that for $150 they're getting an iPad.  They may pale in comparison but until Apple puts out a $150 tablet there are no apples to apples.  I know lots of happy users of all three.  Not everyone needs what an iPad does.

 

Most people aren't buying cheap burger meat at the supermarket and then a month later complain about how wasn't sirloin. 

And again, both KDarling and Macrulez fail to respond.

KD, aren't you a touch screen developer with "decades" of experience? And don't you work with a Fortune 20 company that's deploying thousands of Android tablets?

The news report is not surprising given my own purchase patterns this year. I bought an iPad 4 for my best friend in September, bought two iPad 4s for myself and my partner last year, and bought my parents two Kindle Fires for Christmas. Why did I get them Kindle Fires instead of iPad Minis? Because my parents see all tablets as "the same" (forget trying to tell them about why the iPad is better) and the Kindle Fire is much cheaper at $199 than Apple's $329 iPad Mini.

 

I presume there are many, many people out there who are evaluating tablets along the same lines - i.e., they are all the same and Kindle Fire is cheaper.

I've been in the hospital ER since New Year's, and am awaiting surgery for a twisted bowel. Using phone now. Will have to wait a few days for a reply. Sorry.

(Actually not sure what you want a comment on from me. I don't care who buys what. I've seen many fan objects come and go over three decades online. This group too shall pass.)

Thx wish me luck.

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Edited by MacRulez - 5/16/13 at 12:09pm

Exactly what I was thinking. How many people are still making do with something that isn't an iPad? Give it a few weeks and they'll stop using their "also ran" tablet that someone bought them thinking it's the right one or they bought because it was cheap.

Oh there's definitely a low-end tablet market. I was just saying that this article has a fantastic headline that is a complete sham.

This article is based on web usage... not market share.

Market share is calculated by taking the company's sales over the period and dividing it by the total sales of the industry over the same period.

So.... take all the iPads sold over the holidays... and compare that to all the Kindle Fires sold over the holidays... and tell me how the Kindle Fire gained market share at the expense of the iPad.

Web traffic is not the same as market share... nor can it be used to calculate market share.

That's why I said this news is no cause for celebration. The headline is wrong.

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Edited by MacRulez - 5/16/13 at 12:09pm

 

Actually, I don't think most people distinguish between the hardware and the software.

 

4. Let's talk returns.

 

Last year, a significant number of Kindle Fires were returned.  No doubt because they were given

as gifts that the recipients didn't want.  And I'd expect the same this year.

 

Of course, Amazon doesn't reveal sales numbers (or return percentages.)  How convenient.

 

Sources:

 

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/03/how-many-kindle-fires-are-being-returned-to-amazon/

 

http://seekingalpha.com/article/312394-kindle-fire-returns-could-hit-amazon-s-earnings

 

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2011/12/05/kindle-fire-high-sales-and-high-returns/

.

 

You're locked in with every e-bookstore with the exception of Project Gutenberg. (Where, unfortunately, because of absurd extensions to copyright, the selection is somewhat limited.) Although, with iBooks the app, at least, you are able to "side load" content. Something you can't really do with Kindle, where you have to upload it to your account to be able to access it. Then there are also the instances where Amazon has wiped people's accounts clean, including books they "purchased".

 

Books, like music, ought to be DRM free, but, if I were going to buy e-books (and I'm not, until they are DRM free), I'd buy them from someone who doesn't have a history of revoking your access to them.

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Edited by MacRulez - 5/16/13 at 12:12pm

Touch screen developer since 1869...
And that Fortune 20 company is Apple, which is deploying thousands of millions of Android tablets. /s

 

Not having pored over the license(s) with this question in mind, I can't say whether he is mistaken or not. Just as I don't buy e-books, I don't use cloud based music services, or buy music as downloads, so the question doesn't affect me.

Some of that Android traffic is from people like my girlfriend, whose father gave her a 7-inch Galaxy Tab for Christmas. I told her to give it a fair chance to prove itself, which she did ... before we traded it in on an iPad mini.

It wouldn't surprise me if 7% was low for the Fire, and that ABI chart agrees with me.  The logic being that the browser on the Kindle is actually pretty poor.

 

They are fun for games, movies and reading, but still need a quality browser.  Because of that, for every owner browsing on an iPad, I say there are probably 2 Kindle users.  So I would not be surprised if these reported numbers are low - I would expect closer to 10-14% Kindle.

 

Additionally, of the people I know, many more purchased Kindles for kids and family than an iPad.  Some got an iPad, but the value proposition is helping Amazon big time.

Well the sun still shines and my mum loves me, need I say more.

Amazon and google had effectively destroy the myth of marketshare by selling their products at cost or very low profits whereas in a business environment where profits rule.

 

So what is the point of selling more when profits are negligible.

 

One thing I can't figure out is just before christmas the same company said the iPads registered the highest ads impression and all of a sudden it lost over 7% post christmas apparently the law of average doesn't apply to Apple and what about the iPads being gifted or some Apple shorts paid them a huge amount of money to say so.

 

I am just saying.

Indeed, I've just been pointing out trends without making moral judgements, and this seems to upset people a lot. The one thing I say about Apple though is that this is post-Steve-Jobs, and such current trends are something to note in the post-Steve-Jobs Apple. Because Steve kept re-inventing, and his answer to declining market share was simply, create a whole new product category... Again and again. Can Tim Cook's Apple create not just one, but several, entirely new product categories?