Recent numbers in from market research firm IHS iSuppli shows a shift in the tablets wars of late.
Apple iPad market share in 2011 dropped from 64% in the 3rd quarter to 57% in the 4th. Much of this was down to competition with its own iPhone4S released in October, but the first tablet that isn’t a tablet – the Kindle Fire – also played a starring role.
ISuppli estimates that Kindle Fire sales were approximately 3.9 million, giving Amazon’s new kid on the block around 14% market share. This is in part to aggressive marketing tactics against the iPad as an ebook reader, but also their competitve pricing put the Fire in range of a much larger range of people, and trading of the strength of the Kindle brand, also a viable gift option.
Will Apple buckle and enter the 7″ tablet space, with an iPad Mini at a price point closer to that of the Kindle? Apple will never come near the $200 of the Kindle Fire, but they could conceivably ship a 7″ iPad with the same resolution as the current models at a discounted price of say $299 or $349. This would put them squarely in the 7″ tablet space and make the ‘no-brainer’ decision that the Fire is for many when compared to the iPad2 a much harder choice.
This post was written by Rob Gordon, an IT geek, gadget lover and blogger. Rob has been using the internets since 1994 when the only streaming video was that coffee pot in Cambridge (rip)….
Follow Rob on Twitter – @robgordon – about.me/robgordonuk
