Amazon’s upcoming Kindle Fire could be the hottest tablet on the market this holiday season, with demand that may even surpass Apple’s blockbuster slate, the iPad 2. Results from a recent survey published by electronics shopping guide Retrevo.com suggest that more consumers are interested in purchasing Amazon’s upcoming tablet than Apple’s tried and true iPad. As a result, the site speculates that the Kindle Fire represents Apple’s first real competition in the tablet space. Read on for more.
Of more than 1,000 consumers polled by Retrevo last month, 12% said they plan to purchase an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet this holiday shopping season. 10% said they would purchase an iPad ahead of the holidays. Among those polled who already owned a tablet model of some kind, 27% said they would upgrade to a Kindle Fire and 20% said they planned to purchase an iPad.
When asked if they would consider purchasing the $199 Kindle Fire over Apple’s iPad 2, which starts at $499, 44% of respondents said yes and only 12% said no. 44% said they didn’t know enough about the Kindle Fire to decide.
“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,” Retrevo’s Andrew Eisner wrote on a company blog. “As 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.”
A separate survey recently conducted by ChangeWave found that pre-launch demand for the Amazon Kindle Fire exceeded demand for the original iPad before it launched in 2010. Apple isn’t sweating the Amazon tablet, however, and CEO Tim Cook reportedly thinks further Android fragmentation brought about by the Kindle Fire will drive consumers to the iPad.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire will go on sale November 15th, and analysts believe fourth-quarter shipments could total as many as 5 million units.