Kindle Fire shipments show steep drop

Although Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet achieved a quick rise in the tablet market, Android tablet shipments have continued to slide, according to a report published by research firm IDC. As expected, Apple has solidified its dominant position with 68 percent of the tablet market.

Amazon reportedly took the second place with 16.8 percent of the market in the fourth quarter after the Kindle Fire arrived on the market, however sales quickly dropped and have left the company in third place with just four percent of overall tablet shipments in the first quarter of 2012.

The decline in Fire shipments enabled Samsung to reclaim its position directly behind Apple, while Lenovo and and Barnes & Noble round out the top five.

Despite the falloff in Android shipments for the first quarter of the year, the IDC predicts that Samsung and Lenovo are poised to grow market share when their latest tablets arrive on the market.

"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," said IDC researcher Tom Mainelli. "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."

By Electronista Staff

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Amazon, industry, Android, Kindle, iPad, Kindle Fire