New data being published by mobile app analytics company Localytics shows that one third of all Android tablets in the USA are from Amazon. Also the company is claiming that the USA is the largest tablet market in the world with nearly 60% of all tablets made being sold in the States.
After the Kindle Fire comes the Nook which has 10% of the North American market. The combined Kindle Fire and Nook sales, which is 43% of all U.S. tablets sales, show that tablets from content providers (since both Amazon and Barnes & Noble provide books, music and films for their devices) are very popular. The Samsung Galaxy range of devices takes 9% of the U.S. market and the Google Nexus 7 has an 8% slice.
After the USA, the biggest country which buys tablets is the UK with some 5% of all tablets being sold in Great Britain. 2% go to Korea and another 2% are sold in Spain. The rest of the world (31%) accounts for the remaining sales.
What is surprising about these numbers is the predominance of the USA and the extent of Amazon’s sales. The lack of Asian countries as well as the under performance of Samsung is contrary to other data and forecasts. Last week, new tablet forecasting data from Pacific Crest Securities estimated that Samsung will sell as many as 40 million tablets in 2013 while Amazon is expected to slip to the number four vendor spot with sales of around 10 million tablets.
Skew
It is probable that Localytics’ data is a little skewed in favor of the USA and towards the Kindle Fire. The reason for this is that the company is based in the USA and the data is generated from apps using Localytics analysis service. Although Localytics says that there are 500 million+ unique devices running its software, it is certain that most of these are from American or European authors. The number of Asian apps which incorporate the service is probably very low. Also it is likely that authors who are keen to compare and contrast the performance of their apps across multiple platforms (including the Kindle Fire) are using Localytics services. This implies app writers who are releasing their products on Apple, generic Android, Kindle and Nook. If this is true it means that the number of Kindle users will be skewed as a higher than average number of Kindle apps will incorporate the Localytics libraries than those released just in the Google Play Store.
Until Localytics releases comparative data on geographic location of the authors that use their software, along with data on what percentage of the different eco-systems are used, it is best to take these statistics with a grain of salt.
Leave A Comment