The world of tablets has been fragmented mainly between the iOS and Android platforms, and for the latter, there is even further fragmentation occurring. For instance, the different sized tablets (7″ and 10″) do cause some headaches amongst potential buyers, not to mention the price point. Comscore reports that price is king at the moment, since Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which was launched not too long ago (November 2011), has managed to gain a stranglehold on the Android tablet market share by surpassing the 50% mark. This is made possible by doubling its market share in just a couple of months – and we are talking about February figures here. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the Kindle Fire’s closest competitor, although it has plenty of work to be done in playing catch up with a “meagre” market share of 15.4%, while the Motorola Xoom lies in third place.
The moral of the story? It is good to be cheap, and even more so in these economically trying times where austerity measures are being implemented nearly everywhere. There is the issue of developers targeting Kindle-class projects for apps, which might have the potential to be a platform to introduce shovelware in spades later on, and this is certainly a cause for concern.
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