Study: 65% of tablet buyers want an iPad, 22% a Kindle Fire
ChangeWave says Kindle Fire 1st non-iPad to matter — Amazon's Kindle Fire is the first tablet outside of the iPad to get any meaningful demand, ChangeWave said in a new study. Although Apple was still by far the dominant pick …
Context & Ripple Effects
The October early signs that the Kindle Fire might do well have hardened into numbers: a ChangeWave study puts intended demand for Amazon's $199 tablet at 22% of prospective buyers, against 65% who want an iPad. That makes the Fire the first non-Apple tablet to register meaningful purchase intent at all — every other Android entrant has polled in the noise.
The timing matters because the Fire had only just been announced when sentiment was being measured, and a separate DigiTimes report — unconfirmed supply-chain sourcing — claims Amazon is already planning an 8.9-inch follow-up to the 7-inch Fire for late Q2 2012. If demand intent this strong holds through the holiday quarter, Amazon's content-and-commerce pricing model rather than hardware specs is what's pulling buyers.
First-order effects
- Amazon enters the holiday season with demonstrated buyer demand behind its $199 price point, validating the sell-hardware-near-cost, monetize-content strategy over the margin-rich approach every other Android vendor took.
- Apple retains a dominant two-thirds share of stated demand, so the Fire's gains come at the expense of the rest of the Android tablet field rather than the iPad itself.
Second-order effects
- Samsung, Motorola and other Android tablet makers are squeezed from both ends — undercut by a $199 rival with Amazon's retail and media muscle above them, and outclassed by the iPad below them — forcing them toward price cuts or exit.
- If the rumored 8.9-inch Fire materializes, Amazon would be attacking the iPad's screen-size tier directly while keeping its cost advantage, pressuring Apple to defend the low end of its lineup.
Third-order effects
- The tablet market is bifurcating into two viable models — a premium integrated ecosystem (Apple) and a subsidized content-delivery device (Amazon) — with generic mid-priced Android tablets holding neither position.
- Demand measurement firms like ChangeWave become the de facto scoreboard for whether second-mover platforms can carve out real share, shaping where developers and media partners commit next.
The trend: Tablet demand is consolidating around two poles — Apple's premium ecosystem and Amazon's price-led content play — leaving conventional Android tablets without a defensible middle.