14 DAY TRIAL // Surprisingly, Amazon's tablet shipment share fell significantly during the first quarter of 2012, so the company lost its comfortable second spot on the Android slate market.
Earlier today, we reported on the general state of the worldwide tablet market and how the number of sold Android slates decreased, compared to the fourth quarter of 2011, by more than expected.
The OS itself, or at least the level of interest consumers show in it, is seen as responsible for this, although this does make the prediction of strong Android 4.0 slates in Q3 a bit paradoxical.
Regardless, there was bound to be an underdog in all this and, surprisingly, Amazon seems to fit the position.
Sure, that's a bit of a stretch to say, since the Kindle Fire still made the third spot, after Apple's iPad and Samsung's product line.
Nevertheless, Amazon's product declined in market share massively, from 16.8% in Q4, 2011 to just barely over 4%.
"It seems some of the mainstream Android vendors are finally beginning to grasp a fact that Amazon, B&N, and Pandigital figured out early on: Namely, to compete in the media tablet market with Apple, they must offer their products at notably lower price points," Mainelli added.
"We expect a new, larger-screened device from Amazon at a typically aggressive price point, and Google will enter the market with an inexpensive, co-branded ASUS tablet designed to compete directly on price with Amazon's Kindle Fire. The search giant's new tablet will run a pure version of Android, whereas the Fire runs Amazon's own forked version of the OS that cuts Google out of the picture."
After Amazon, the fourth position fell to Lenovo and the fifth spot was gained by Barnes and Noble. Apple will keep its leading role for a while, but everyone else will have a fight on their hands soon, maybe not in the third quarter but definitely before the year is out. Windows 8 will shake things up after all.