Observers expect Amazon.com (AMZN) to unveil its latest Kindle Fire tablets in September, with one big hint being a recent price cut on its existing Kindle Fire HD tablet.
Two recent surveys found Amazon’s tablet losing share, with Samsung now clearly the top challenger to No. 1 Apple (AAPL).
GVA Research’s David Garrity says Amazon feels pressure to upgrade its Kindle Fire because Apple is expected to release its newest iPads soon. While Apple is widely expected to release its newest iPhones on Sept. 10, Garrity says new iPad releases that day are also very possible.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle Fire HD a year ago, but this year’s plans are still not known. View Enlarged Image
“If Amazon doesn’t have something out between now and the time Apple releases a new version of the iPad, look for further weakness where the Kindle is concerned,” Garrity said. “What has been sluggishness will turn into a substantial decline.”
Not Among Top 5
On Aug. 5, market tracker IDC said global shipments of Amazon’s Kindle Fire slipped during the second quarter.
For the first time since the Fire’s launch in late 2011, it didn’t make IDC’s top five worldwide tablet vendors.
Apple’s iPad remained No. 1, said IDC, followed in order by Samsung, Asus, Lenovo and Acer. Amazon was No. 6.
During 2012′s holiday shopping season, IDC says Amazon was No. 3 in tablet shipments, behind Apple and Samsung.
But S & P Capital IQ equity analyst Michael Souers said it was already obvious that “Kindle Fire has certainly lost some share.”
Souers says Amazon has pulled back on its advertising for the Fire, even as some rivals have stepped up their advertising.
Jumptap, a mobile platform provider, found in a poll released Aug. 22 that Kindle Fire’s US tablet market share in July, based on mobile traffic, had fallen to 10.1% from 21.5% in July 2012. Jumptap’s results are based on data from its platform of more than 218 million US mobile users.
Market share for Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet, by comparison, had jumped to 11.1% from 5.3%. Jumptap says Samsung replaced Amazon in the No. 2 spot, behind Apple. Amazon fell to No. 3.
The survey found Apple’s share rose to a 70.1% share from 67%.
“Kindle’s market share is sputtering, and this is something that Amazon should definitely take notice of,” said Matt Duffy, marketing vice president at Jumptap.
Duffy says Apple’s iPad Mini has taken a bite out of Kindle’s popularity.
Amazon has been benefiting from the declining sales of Barnes & Noble ‘s (BKS) Nook e-reader. But Google (GOOG), a relatively recent entrant in tablets, is coming up fast. Google’s Nexus 7 tablet saw a 2.3 percentage point gain in July, says Jumptap, making it No. 4 in its survey.
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