Amazon’s Kindle Fire (And B&N’s Nook) Could Put The Heat On iPad This Holiday Season

Retrevo blogger Andrew notes that with the new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet about to go on sale, Amazon.com claims to have received so many pre-orders they are building millions more Fires than originally planned. Apple has sold more than 25 million iPads to date (11.6 million in Q3 alone), and in a Pulse Study, Retrevo looks at what consumers know about the new Amazon tablet and whether or not they plan on buying one.

Can Amazon Take a Bite Out of Apple’s Market Share?

It looks like this will be a very good holiday season for tablet computers Andrew notes, with only 31% of respondents in this study saying they are not interested in a tablet. Out of the remaining 69% who are interested in buying a tablet or possibly learning more about them, 44% of them would be willing to consider a smaller, 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire. At the same time only 12% say they wouldn’t even consider anything other than an iPad. With this much acceptance of a smaller tablet and the large price difference, he deduces that conditions seem right for the Amazon Fire to become a hot item this year. Although the study didn’t ask specifically about the Barnes and Noble Nook, Andrew observes that the recently announced, $249 Nook tablet could also be an attractive alternative to an iPad.

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Should Amazon Have Named Their New Tablet A Kindle?

The Amazon Kindle is a strong brand and a popular e-reader, the report notes. However, it looks like Amazon may have to spend some marketing dollars if it wants consumers to perceive Kindle as a tablet too. In this study, conducted after Amazon announced the Fire, a majority of respondents (35%) still thought the Kindle Fire was an e-reader. Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet may have a similar identity-confusion problem.

Does Tablet Size Matter?

Although size is a very subjective aspect of a tablet computer, Retrevo’s researchers think it looks like a 7-inch tablet could be very popular, helping boost sales of both Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet as well as other smaller, lighter Android tablets. They suggest that perhaps there are a lot of iPad owners who think the iPad is a tad heavy and difficult to hold in one hand, because only about half the iPad 2 owners said the iPad was just right. Of course, that’s not to say there won’t be strong demand for 10-inch or 8-inch, or some other sized tablet, and in fact, there’ve been rumors of a 10-inch (or 8.9-inch) Amazon tablet following close on the heels of the 7-inch Fire. On the other hand, iPad owners might be interested in a smaller, lighter iPad as well.

Dawn of the Two Tablet Household

The survey didn’t address the matter of whether families are tired of fighting over the iPad, or if the new $199 Kindle Fire looks irresistible, but the report says it appears a large number of existing tablet owners are planning on buying another tablet this holiday season, with the numbers looking a bit high even to the researchers, but that’s what the data revealed. Actually, they report that the two tablet household phenomenon is already here as they found more than 27% of iPad 2 owners indicating they owned another tablet. Curiously, when people who don’t own a tablet are included, the number of buyers looking at iPads and Kindle Fires are smaller and closer to each other, posing the question of whether it may be that current tablet owners are more likely to buy a second tablet this year than someone buying their first tablet taking the plunge.

Retrevo’s Conclusion:

Up until now, no tablet has been able to compete with Apple’s iPad. Operating System confusion and lack of tablet apps on the Android side may have helped keep Android tablets at bay. However, the iPad 2 is starting to show its age and the new Kindle Fire is about to make the scene with a very attractive $199 price point (and the B&N Nook Tablet at $249. Ed). However, they observe that however popular as the Kindle Fire appears in this study, whether it lives up to expectations on things like battery life, performance, image quality, etc, the picture could get brighter or less bright for the Kindle Fire. Amazon may also benefit from the timing of their tablet. With the iPad 2 nearly a year old and the iPad 3 rumored to not be available until next year (missing the holiday season), Amazon may have timed the launch of their tablet just right. The researchers also think it’s interesting that the strongest competition the Apple iPad may experience this season could very well come from book and content sellers (Amazon and Barnes & Noble) rather than other tablet manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola.

The Retrevo Pulse is an ongoing study of people and electronics from the consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo.com. The data for this report came from a study of online individuals conducted exclusively for Retrevo in October of 2011 by an independent panel. The sample size was over 1,000 distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States. Most responses have a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level.

To contact Retrevo’s press department about this study, please email: press at retrevo dot com.

Via: http://bit.ly/sYOPBb