79 Reader Comments

1. DragonTHCArs Centurion
   I have used both devices. I prefer the Nexus 7. It's simply a better device.
2. PlisskenArs Centurion
   Not surprised that the Kindle Fire is at the top of the chart, but I'm shocked the Nexus 7 is that low. I'm guessing this says something about the consumer demographic for tablets, i.e. the average buy is less concerned about Android loadout quality and browser experience and is more than happy with the attractive price point and ease-of-use for reading and using Amazon services.
3. fewyunSmack-Fu Master, in training
   Plissken wrote:

   Not surprised that the Kindle Fire is at the top of the chart, but I'm shocked the Nexus 7 is that low. I'm guessing this says something about the consumer demographic for tablets, i.e. the average buy is less concerned about Android loadout quality and browser experience and is more than happy with the attractive price point and ease-of-use for reading and using Amazon services.

   
   Or that the high end demographic is currently dominated by Apple.

   Last edited by fewyun on Mon Jan 28, 2013 4:58 pm

4. Mr_CynicalWise, Aged Ars Veteran
   The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.
5. RavynmagiSmack-Fu Master, in training
   At first I was surprised. But actually I don't think it's too surprising. Because it's seem to be counting ALL Kindle Fire tablets, the Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HD 8.9. And I'm guessing ALL Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 2 tablets are counted together as well.
   
   So the Nexus 7 is going up against a series of Galaxy Tab and Kindle Fire tablets that have been out for the past 2 years and the Nexus 7 has been out about 8 months. Heck, it's doing quite well when I look at it that way.
   
   The Nexus 10 is just too new, so I'm not surprised it hasn't shown up in a sizable percentage yet.
6. rex86Ars Centurion
   I'm not sure that you can compare them like that. The Amazon tablets do not perform the same functions as the Nexus tablets do. They appeal to different audiences and are designed for different audiences in mind. It's like comparing people who prefer BMWs to people who like motorbikes. Different audiences.
7. AndurilArs Centurion
   Not too surprising with how supply constrained the Nexus 7 has been through much of its life. The fact that Amazon was also allowing some pretty heavy discounts on the original style Fire leading up to Christmas certainly pushed alot of volume (hard to argue when the Fire was going for $160 minus a 25 gift card or even just flat out $140)
8. lilweirdwardSmack-Fu Master, in training
   Mr_Cynical wrote:

   The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.

   
   I still have yet to even see a Nexus 10 out in the wild, which is probably the main thing that actually reassures my faith in these figures.
9. NicoleCArs Scholae Palatinae
   Quote:

   According to Localytics, the Kindle Fire has a 33 percent global share of the Android tablet market. The Kindle Fire is tailed by the Nook (Tablet) at 10 percent,

   
   
   This sounds like the group only tallied a single Nook -- the Tablet -- and didn't include the Color, HD or HD+ models. I don't see that inferred in the link to the Localytics article. Is there another source or a more detailed link?
10. pitmonsterArs Centurion
    What period of time does this cover? I couldn't find that info in the article
    
    Is it total sales in a specific period (Q4, 2012) or is it total sales of each device *ever*?
    
    If its the former then stock availability of the Nexus is surely a factor. If a product is out of stock, it can't be bought.
    
    If its the latter, then the fact that the Kindle Fire (launched November 2011) has been on sale for longer than the Nexus 7 (launched July 2012) is surely a factor
    
    Statistics without context have little meaning, and can easily be misinterpreted.
11. economicsWise, Aged Ars Veteran
    Usually market means sales, but this is installed base (which favours early entrants). It also only seems to be giving breakdowns for individual brands within the US. I would imagine the limited roll out of Kindle compared with say Samsung tablets will even change the numbers somewhat if taken at a global scale.
12. PlisskenArs Centurion
    fewyun wrote:

    Plissken wrote:

    Not surprised that the Kindle Fire is at the top of the chart, but I'm shocked the Nexus 7 is that low. I'm guessing this says something about the consumer demographic for tablets, i.e. the average buy is less concerned about Android loadout quality and browser experience and is more than happy with the attractive price point and ease-of-use for reading and using Amazon services.

    
    Or that the high end demographic is currently dominated by Apple.

    
    
    The high-end? I guess it depends on what you mean by that. High-end on the income scale? Yes, you're probably right. Most of the executives I see at conferences these days have iPads (just as most journalists you see these days probably have Macbook Airs), with maybe an occasionaly Galaxy Pad or other Android tablet mixed in. But if we're talking about high-end on the usage scale/tech enthusiast scale, I'm not so sure that the iPad is the dominant choice.
13. DilbertArs Legatus Legionis
    Quote:

    We loved Google's 7-inch tablet, but it lacks Amazon's official backing.
    

    
    
    I wouldn't say it lacks it, as much as it isn't burdened by it.
    
    I've used the Kindle tablet, and well it's a textbook example of a device designed to win the race to the bottom.
14. theJonTechArs Scholae Palatinae
    Amazon has such a great branding and that goes a long way with consumers.
    
    
    Though I have used both and the Nexus is a much better device
15. CadentOrangeSmack-Fu Master, in training
    rex86 wrote:

    I'm not sure that you can compare them like that. The Amazon tablets do not perform the same functions as the Nexus tablets do. They appeal to different audiences and are designed for different audiences in mind. It's like comparing people who prefer BMWs to people who like motorbikes. Different audiences.

    
    
    Small nit pick. BMW make bikes. In fact they were a motorcycle manufacturer years before becoming a car manufacturer. But I get your point
16. lordneekoSmack-Fu Master, in training
    This article is uncharacteristically bad for Arstechnica...usually they have their ducks in a row...this one fails
    
    First off, in the source article (which still doesn't contain any raw data) the following statement is made
    
    " A full 59% of all Android tablets seen by apps with Localytics integrated are based in the US, and over half of those are Kindle Fires or Kindle Fire HDs."
    
    Notice the part about "apps with Localytics integrated" which means an app must have some package integrated with its source in order for Localytics to pick it up. This can easily mean that Amazon and/or B&N is paying Localytics to help them keep tabs on their tablets usage, for market research purpose.
    
    Also, you'll note that the source article "advertises" for using Amazon's app store.
    
    I agree with the above posters that this data includes ALL kindle Fire models and ALL Nook models, and ALL Samsung Galaxy models, and then the 1 Nexus 7 model. I contend that if they were to do a comparison of the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD + (their newest), Nook Tablet (Whatever it's called it sucks), and the leading Samsung Tablet, we'd have a better set of statistics.
    
    Bad job Ars.
    
    
    Case in point. A simple bit of navigating on Localytics' website shows they recently had a deal with B&N to provide Localytics tracking to ALL NOOK app developers. Wouldn't surprise me if they had a similar deal with Amazon.
    
    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... tics-Tools

    Last edited by lordneeko on Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:26 pm

17. steven75Ars Scholae Palatinae
    Plissken wrote:

    The high-end? I guess it depends on what you mean by that. High-end on the income scale? Yes, you're probably right. Most of the executives I see at conferences these days have iPads (just as most journalists you see these days probably have Macbook Airs), with maybe an occasionaly Galaxy Pad or other Android tablet mixed in. But if we're talking about high-end on the usage scale/tech enthusiast scale, I'm not so sure that the iPad is the dominant choice.

    
    
    The iPad is even more dominant in usage than in pure sales metrics.
18. ScifiGeekArs Tribunus Militum
    Mr_Cynical wrote:

    The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.

    
    
    Nexus 10 is $400+ so it is going to be a much smaller volume seller than the the Nexus 7. That and I see local retailers carrying the Nexus 7, not the Nexus 10.
    
    Bottom line the Nexus 10 is likely too far down in market share to get a mention.
19. sprockketsArs Praefectus
    ScifiGeek wrote:

    Mr_Cynical wrote:

    The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.

    
    
    Nexus 10 is $400+ so it is going to be a much smaller volume seller than the the Nexus 7. That and I see local retailers carrying the Nexus 7, not the Nexus 10.
    
    Bottom line the Nexus 10 is likely too far down in market share to get a mention.

    
    
    Sams and Walmart carry the Nexus 10.
20. wellsoul2Smack-Fu Master, in training
    If you add up the 4 - 33 + 10 + 9 + 8 = 60 %
    
    So what is the 40 % ?
    
    I've got a chinese PIPO U1. Paid $150
    
    Could be rather than advertising or content people are considering price first.
21. OstracusArs Legatus Legionis
    Quote:

    Because Localytics uses app installations as a proxy to estimate market shares, its numbers aren’t perfect, though it boasts a large sample size (500 million unique devices).

    
    
    And much like what agent-strings are to browser statistics, can be thrown off by applications like Bluestacks*.
    
    *Or those clone PCs on a stick that pretend to be either phones or tablets
22. the_frakkerArs Centurion
    Kindle Fire is crapware. The hardware has potential to perform well and be a great Android device, but it's slow and restricting because of Amazon's skin of the Android OS. I despise the Kindle Fire devices and hope to see a significant decrease in sales and statistics over the next year.
    
    I will never recommend a Kindle Fire device to anyone as long as Amazon continues with their current strategy for the devices. Nearly every person of every demographic that would be a potential customer for a Kindle Fire would be better off with a similarly priced Android device from a different company.
23. carlisimoArs Scholae Palatinae
    Mr_Cynical wrote:

    The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.

    
    
    There's no word of mouth with the Nexus 10, and not much marketing. I don't think many people even know about it. It could take a while... if it happens at all. The 7" form factor has so much momentum in the Android ecosystem that it'll be hard for 10" to crowd its way in.
24. JGoatArs Scholae Palatinae
    This seems reasonable, and I think it is consistent with data we see on the tablet market overall. The popularity of the iPad and the Fire support the idea that the majority of users are primarily interested in easy content consumption.
    
    I have both the Nexus 7 and the Fire in my house, I much prefer the 7, but my wife is perfectly content with the Fire. Just different use-cases.

    Last edited by JGoat on Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:42 pm

25. halirinSmack-Fu Master, in traininget Subscriptor
    The numbers and graph don't really make a lot of sense as reported. Aside from the methodology questions raised by people above, the graph seems to show that 33% of global android tablets are kindle fires in the US, while 8% are nexus 7s in the US. Those seem like sort of funky ways to split up the categories. I'd be a little more intersted in global shares, or domestic shares, not a weird hybrid. It implies that there are no nexus or kindle fire devices in all the other countries.
26. DavidinAlaArs Praetorian
    It's amazing — but not surprising — that some people here are shocked by this and can't seem to believe it. They seem to have the idea that what they and their geek friends think might somehow be representative of the broader market. It's not. And it's not going to be. For the vast, vast majority of the market, there's no such thing as a Nexus tablet. There are simply iPads and then some kind of book reader from Amazon that also lets you browse the web. It's a relatively rare person who has any knowledge of the tablet market beyond that (unless it's the fact that Microsoft has something new that they've seen ads for).
    
    [Edited to fix typo.]

    Last edited by DavidinAla on Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:22 pm

27. tayhimselfArs Scholae Palatinae
    Mr_Cynical wrote:

    The lack of any mention of the Nexus 10 makes me question how recent and/or accurate these figures are.

    
    The 7 has much broader appeal than the 10.

    Last edited by tayhimself on Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:58 pm

28. strohminatorArs Centurion
    Quote:

    Methodology
    We base our studies at Localytics on usage of apps with Localytics installed as an analytics and in-app marketing solution.
    

    
    
    Reports like this are why people say 75% of all statistics are made up. This is more of an ad for Localytics than hard research.
29. afidelArs Praefectus
    the_frakker wrote:

    Kindle Fire is crapware. The hardware has potential to perform well and be a great Android device, but it's slow and restricting because of Amazon's skin of the Android OS. I despise the Kindle Fire devices and hope to see a significant decrease in sales and statistics over the next year.
    
    I will never recommend a Kindle Fire device to anyone as long as Amazon continues with their current strategy for the devices. Nearly every person of every demographic that would be a potential customer for a Kindle Fire would be better off with a similarly priced Android device from a different company.

    
    Only if you discount parents, Kindle Freetime is a superior parental control system than anything else I've tried. It's not perfect (I'd like a whitelisted browser session for the younger son and and a reported browser session like what Microsoft Live family offers on the PC), but it beats any of the free apps I've tried and because it's integrated with the launcher it's actually tamper-proof unlike every other solution I tried (my 12 year old is already turning into a hacker).
30. IsolateralArs Praefectus
    Plissken wrote:

    fewyun wrote:

    Plissken wrote:

    Not surprised that the Kindle Fire is at the top of the chart, but I'm shocked the Nexus 7 is that low. I'm guessing this says something about the consumer demographic for tablets, i.e. the average buy is less concerned about Android loadout quality and browser experience and is more than happy with the attractive price point and ease-of-use for reading and using Amazon services.

    
    Or that the high end demographic is currently dominated by Apple.

    
    
    The high-end? I guess it depends on what you mean by that. High-end on the income scale? Yes, you're probably right. Most of the executives I see at conferences these days have iPads (just as most journalists you see these days probably have Macbook Airs), with maybe an occasionaly Galaxy Pad or other Android tablet mixed in. But if we're talking about high-end on the usage scale/tech enthusiast scale, I'm not so sure that the iPad is the dominant choice.

    
    
    "High-end" in this context means high margin and high quality. And while some tech enthusiasts may be drawn to Nexus because of its customizability, remember that iPad's popularity also attracts most of the app developers to the iOS platform.
31. karolusArs Scholae Palatinae
    lordneeko wrote:

    Notice the part about "apps with Localytics integrated" which means an app must have some package integrated with its source in order for Localytics to pick it up. This can easily mean that Amazon and/or B&N is paying Localytics to help them keep tabs on their tablets usage, for market research purpose.

    
    
    This brings up another question--what is Localytics' market saturation?
    
    If Google were releasing figures, I'd be more accepting, due to their omnipresence.
    
    Besides, regardless of platform and format (mobile, tablet, desktop/laptop), more content is moving to Web, thanks to greater usage of content optimized for portable devices.
32. CookieCutterSmack-Fu Master, in training
    Am I the only one that thinks lumping Amazon devices with Android devices is a mistake. I guess I don't feel like I'm getting a "real" android device without Google Play. There does appear to be some side-loading possible and a few other work arounds, but they aren't Google certified devices. I think the market is best described as "Android Certified", Amazon (Kindle family), and iOS.
    
    For one this distinction should eliminate the my android is better than your amazon, and vise versa, they are just targeted differently, have different stores, and should be categorized differently, IMO.
33. reflex-croftArs Tribunus Angusticlavius
    I just wonder if Ars will ever adjust its views to represent what the actual market wants. Its frustrating to see review after review bashing on the Fire for not being default Android when its abundantly clear that default Android is *not* what most users actually want. The Nexus 7 is a fine piece of hardware crippled by a lack of a real ecosystem compared to iOS and Amazon.
34. afidelArs Praefectus
    karolus wrote:

    lordneeko wrote:

    Notice the part about "apps with Localytics integrated" which means an app must have some package integrated with its source in order for Localytics to pick it up. This can easily mean that Amazon and/or B&N is paying Localytics to help them keep tabs on their tablets usage, for market research purpose.

    
    
    This brings up another question--what is Localytics' market saturation?
    
    If Google were releasing figures, I'd be more accepting, due to their omnipresence.
    
    Besides, regardless of platform and format (mobile, tablet, desktop/laptop), more content is moving to Web, thanks to greater usage of content optimized for portable devices.

    
    Considering Google's numbers for the Kindle and Nook would be near 0 (they don't include the Google Framework or Play store) I'd say Google's numbers would be worse than someone who has access to the numbers from multiple sources.
35. afidelArs Praefectus
    reflex-croft wrote:

    I just wonder if Ars will ever adjust its views to represent what the actual market wants. Its frustrating to see review after review bashing on the Fire for not being default Android when its abundantly clear that default Android is *not* what most users actually want. The Nexus 7 is a fine piece of hardware crippled by a lack of a real ecosystem compared to iOS and Amazon.

    
    Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with the Nexus being crippled since you can put the Amazon apps on the Nexus and get access to all of the Amazon (minus some streaming) content and all of the Google Play store content, the opposite is NOT true without some deal of effort (rooting and installing the Google framework and Playstore app and login provider, etc is not something your average user is going to know about let alone successfully do).
36. A.FelixArs Praetorian
    DavidinAla wrote:

    It's amazing — but not surprising — that some people here are shocked by this and can't seem to believe it. They seem to have the idea that what they are their geek friends think might somehow be representative of the broader market. It's not. And it's not going to be. For the vast, vast majority of the market, there's no such thing as a Nexus tablet. There are simply iPads and then some kind of book reader from Amazon that also lets you browse the web. It's a relatively rare person who has any knowledge of the tablet market beyond that (unless it's the fact that Microsoft has something new that they've seen ads for).

    
    
    I see your point, but I don't think the broader market is so oblivious to Android as a system or the tablets that run it. Not that long ago this very site published figures where Android tablets and iPads are pretty much splitting the market half and half with Android gaining momentum. So you may be right that the general populace just thinks iPad and something else, but as actual device buyers go, right now there's more than one Android customer for every iPad one.
    
    Besides, the numbers from this article are just about Android tablets, so I don't know where are you coming from to include the iPad in the discussion (although not that unexpected giving that it is the best selling tablet), since we don't have numbers on it to compare with what the report is showing. What people here are discussing is what was the methodology that put up these numbers from exclusively Android tablets and if those numbers are accurate, which is a valid questioning.
37. PenforhireArs Praefectus
    I'm not sure about the exact reason but anecdotally I recommended to someone that she look at the Nexus 7 before buying the Kindle Fire. She still bought the Kindle. I think it came down to more faith in Amazon's offerings than the Android store for use in the living room at home. She uses an Android phone (RAZR Maxx HD that she loves) so it isn't like she doesn't understand Android.
38. bb-15Ars Tribunus Militum
    economics wrote:

    Usually market means sales, but this is installed base (which favours early entrants). It also only seems to be giving breakdowns for individual brands within the US. I would imagine the limited roll out of Kindle compared with say Samsung tablets will even change the numbers somewhat if taken at a global scale.

    
    Yes, third-quarter global tablet market share shipment numbers according to IDC are;
    1. Apple 50.4%
    
    2. Samsung 18.4%
    
    3. Amazon.com 9.0%
    
    4. Asus (including the Nexus 7) 8.6%
    https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containe ... QbAbWt5mSN
39. IagoRubioSmack-Fu Master, in training
    I would take those figures with a pinch of salt.
    
    Localitycs is not that widespread in the android ecosystem, where Google Analytics for Android is installed by the Android SDK for free.
    
    I was unable to find if it's distributed with the Nook or Amazon Kindle SDKs but I guess it's not.