Apple Inc, which is releasing its latest iPad tablet model today, does not have an Android-based competitor with more than 5 percent of the market, Forrester Research Inc said in a report published yesterday.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, controls 73 percent of the market, while Samsung Electronics Co, Sony Corp and Toshiba Corp are among firms making incremental improvements to tablets without bringing services that cut into the market share, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said.
Android-based tablets have been priced in the same range as iPads with inconsistent branding, Epps added.
Amazon Inc’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook tablets may vie for second place, because they build features on top of Android without using the brand and sell for a lower price, she said.
“Tablets are about services,” Epps said in a telephone interview on Monday. “That is where Amazon has succeeded where others have failed.”
When Forrester carried out its survey in September last year, Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) ranked second with 6 percent of the market, followed by Samsung, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc and Acer Inc (宏碁), with 5 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent respectively. HP cut the price of its TouchPads to US$99 before it stopped selling them.
About one-third of the US adult population will own a tablet by 2016, as more people bring them to their workplaces, according to Forrester. The majority of tablets used for work are paid for by the employee, it added.
“This market is growing faster than we expected — faster than anyone expected,” Epps said.
In September, before Amazon’s Kindle Fire was released, 24 percent of consumers surveyed said they would buy a tablet made by Amazon, compared with 61 percent who said they would buy an iPad and 21 percent who said they would buy a Samsung tablet, Forrester said.
Apple is expected to release an iPad with a high-definition screen, a faster processor and compatibility with next-generation wireless networks, people familiar with the product said in January.
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