The Amazon Kindle Fire accounts for more than half of all Android tablets in the US. — AFP picSEATTLE, April 28 — Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is proving to be incredibly popular with consumers in the US. The device now commands more than half of the entire Android tablet market in the country.

“The Kindle Fire, introduced to the market in November 2011, has seen rapid adoption among buyers of tablets,” said market researcher comScore in a report released on April 26. “Within the Android tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past two months from 29.4 per cent share in December 2011 to 54.4 per cent share in February 2012, already establishing itself as the leading Android tablet by a wide margin.”

Despite launching worthy tablet competitors during the early stages of the global “tablet wars” and spending big bucks on marketing, rival tablet manufacturers such as Samsung and Motorola are now struggling to dominate the tablet market.

The entire Samsung Galaxy Tab family — which includes tablets ranging from 7” to 10.1” — had a market share of 15.4 per cent in February this year, down from 23.8 per cent in December 2011.

In February seven per cent of Android tablet owners in the US owned a Motorola Xoom, 6.3 per cent owned an Asus Transformer, 5.7 per cent owned a Toshiba AT100, 4.3 per cent owned an Acer Picasso, 2.1 per cent owned an Acer Iconia, 1.3 per cent owned a Dell Streak and 1.3 per cent owned a Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1. Only 0.7 per cent of tablet owners in the US owned Sony’s uniquely shaped Tablet S.

ComScore also found that consumers with larger tablets and bigger screens typically consumed more content on their device. ComScore said, “10″ tablets have a 39-per cent higher consumption rate than 7″ tablets and a 58-per cent higher rate than 5″ tablets.”

In a recent report market analyst Forrester forecast that consumers will purchase 375 million tablets globally by 2016. In the same year Forrester predicts that “tablets will become the preferred, primary device for millions of people around the world” and an estimated 760 million tablets will be in use. — AFP-Relaxnews