iPad Loses Market

Despite the sale of more than 17 million iPads in the last quarter, Apple’s share of the tablet market has declined markedly over the year, according to a new study by the American consulting company Frank N. Magid Associates.

During the research, the company’s employees interviewed 4,734 owners of phones and smartphones in the United States and found out that 50% of respondents who own a tablet (34% turned out to be such) have an iPad. Not a bad result, but 72% had an iPad a year ago. 

Amazon’s KindleFire took Apple’s share – its share increased from zero to 22% over the year. According to Tom Godfrey, executive director of mobile strategy at Magid, it was the release of this tablet in September last year that turned the situation on the tablet market. 

Moreover, in his opinion, the share of the iPad will continue to shrink – competitors, as they say, are not asleep. Most recently, the Nexus 7 was released, developed jointly by Asus and Google. It will be released in October Microsoft Surface with Windows 8. Also in the fall, a whole series of budget solutions from Amazon is expected to be released. 

“We believe that the iPad will continue to be the market leader, but the shares of the Surface, Kindle Fire and Nexus will also be very significant in size,” Godfrey is confident.

The company’s director also said that the number of tablet owners in the United States will double from 51 million to 106 million people by next year.