The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is quickly staking out a place for itself in the tablet market with strong consumer intent to purchase. However, while the iPad?s share will erode going forward thanks to growing competition, it will still be the dominant player.

One in five consumers who plan to purchase a tablet say they will buy a Kindle Fire, according to a new survey from ChangeWave Research. At the same time, a new report from eMarketer forecasts that the iPad?s share of the tablet market will drop from 83 percent in 2011 to 68 percent by 2014.

?I think the Kindle Fire has a potential to make an impact due to pricing and its integration with Amazon?s content and commerce platform,? said Noah Elkin, principal analyst at eMarketer, New York.

?What Amazon has done by pricing the ereader line the way it has and the Kindle Fire the way it has, it clearly aims to capitalize on demand for consumer electronics during the holidays and to make both very strong gift items during the fourth quarter,? he said.

?The decreasing cost overall for both ereaders and tablets will make them much more of higher volume devices and will lead to more rapid uptake among consumers.?

Growing interest
EMarketer forecasts that iPad users will number 28 million by the end of 2011 and 60.8 million by the end of 2014.

During the same period, the total number of tablet users will grow from 33.7 million in 2011 to 89.5 million by 2014.

?I think you are going to start to see a bifurcation of the tablet market into the fully featured tablets like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy tablet and a more stripped-down lower cost media tablet such as the Kindle Fire and Nook,? Mr. Elkin said.

?I think Kindle Fire has less of a potential impact on the iPad and more of a potential impact on other tablets that have less name recognition and less of a strong integration with the types of content that are going to be consumed on these tablets,? he said.

The ChangeWave survey focused on future demand trends for tablets, including intended holiday purchases, finding that interest in tablets is on the rise.

A total of 14 percent of respondents said they will buy a tablet in the next 90 days, which is 8 points higher than an August ChangeWave survey and more than triple the level of a year ago.

The survey also found that, for the first time since the launch of the iPad, there is another tablet in the market that is receiving strong interest from consumers: Kindle Fire. Of the respondents to the survey, 22 percent said they will purchase a Kindle Fire.

The survey of 3,043 North American consumers found that 2 percent of respondents have already pre-ordered Kindle Fire, 5 percent say they are very likely to buy it and 12 say they are somewhat likely to purchase it. 

IPad is still the leader with 65 percent of future tablet buyers saying they will purchase Apple?s tablet.
Brace for impact

No other manufacturer is garnering more than 1 percent of future tablet demand among consumers except for the Samsung Galaxy Tab ? with 4 percent of consumers saying they will buy it.

The ChangeWave survey points to a recent surge in interest for the Amazon Kindle Fire. ChangeWave forecasts that Kindle Fire will leapfrog ahead of other tablet manufacturers to become the number two product in the market behind the iPad, as long as it provides a quality user experience.

The demand for Kindle Fire will have an impact on tablet manufacturers such as Motorola, Dell, HTC, HP and Toshiba more than it will on Apple, according to the report.

Other findings include that 40 percent of respondents planning on buying a tablet say price is the number one factor affecting their purchasing decision followed by 21 percent who said a long batter life is important.

Price is more of a factor those planning to buy a Kindle Fire, with 75 percent of these consumers naming price as the top factor in their decision compared with 22 percent of iPad buyers.

The Kindle Fire is priced $199 compared with $499 for the lowest cost iPad.

?Over time, as we saw in our forecast, the iPad?s share of the tablet market will inevitably decline somewhat from where it is today but it will still be strong,? eMarketer?s Mr. Elkin said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York

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