Amazon Steals 14% Tablet Market Share In Q4, Apple Share Drops To 57%

Jordan Crook

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. Hello → Learn More

Thursday, February 16th, 2012
firevsipad

We’ve known since the Fire first debuted that it would create some competition for Apple’s iPad, which has dominated the market since it arrived. But today iSuppli has offered up a little insight into just how fierce the competition really is.

According to the research firm, Apple’s market share in the tablet arena dropped from 64 percent in Q3 to 57 percent in Q4, with Amazon nabbing a 14 percent share.

It would seem as though that $200 price tag on the Kindle Fire was temptation enough for tablet buyers, but according to IHS research Apple customers were more swayed away from the iPad by the iPhone 4S than they were the Fire.

Including Christmas sales, Apple shipped at least 15.4 million iPads while Amazon had shipped 3.9 million Fires. It’s important to note that shipments are a very different number than sales, but with both of these products selling well we wouldn’t consider these numbers misleading by any means.

iSuppli projects that the iPad 3, which will most certainly be the superior device, will help Apple recapture any market share it lost over the past few months, but with such a gap between price points, anything can happen.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet took the third and fourth spots, with 8 percent and 7 percent shares respectively.


Company: Apple
Website: apple.com
Launch Date: April 1, 1976
IPO: NASDAQ:AAPL

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the...

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Company: Amazon
Website: amazon.com
Launch Date: 1994
IPO: NASDAQ:AMZN

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon is one of the first companies to sell products deep into the long tail by housing them in numerous warehouses and distributing products from many partner companies. Amazon directly sells or acts as a platform for the sale of a broad range of products. These include books, music, videos, consumer electronics, clothing and household products. The majority of Amazon’s...

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