Amazon catapulted into top 5 tablet makers
Remember those days when Amazon sold their Fire Tablet for just 50$? We thought that it was some crazy move but thanks to the low cost tablets, Amazon grabbed the #3 spot in 4Q15 tablet sales. Amazon has managed to sell whopping 7.6 million tablets which increased their market share from mere 1.5% to 5%. Apple and Lenovo registered negative growth but managed to stick to the top two slots (16.1% share for Apple and 9% share for Samsung). Lenovo and Huawei rounded off the top five. Take a look at the shipment numbers, generated by ABI Research
| 2015 Top 5 Branded Tablet Vendor Shipments | |||
| Branded Tablet Vendor | 4Q 2014
(Millions of Units) |
4Q 2015
(Millions of Units) |
CY 2015 (Millions of Units) |
| Amazon | 1.5 | 5.0 | 7.6 |
| Apple | 21.4 | 16.1 | 49.6 |
| Huawei | 1.3 | 2.3 | 7.7 |
| Lenovo | 3.6 | 3.2 | 11.5 |
| Samsung | 11.1 | 9.0 | 34.1 |
| Others | 12.9 | 7.7 | 30.3 |
| Total | 51.9 | 43.3 | 140.8 |
“Unlike other tablet manufacturers, Amazon views hardware as a commodity and emphasizes focus on its recurring digital content revenue stream, generated from selling digital books, music, TV, and video programming to owners of its devices,” says Jeff Orr, Research Director at ABI Research. “The incredibly low pricing of the Fire Tablet is a smart and strategic move, as few others can afford to accept a lower margin on their tablet devices in favor of driving a surplus of content-related revenues.”
“Most tablet vendors continue to take a wait-and-see approach to Amazon’s Fire Tablet release,” continues Orr. “It’s a path only few can follow, as vendors without content distribution rights and value-added services can only rely on the transaction price of their hardware to stay in business. For instance, LeEco, formerly LeTV, in China is attempting a similar model. Conversely, content owners may find value in broadening their ecosystems by striking relationships with tablet vendors to get their programming in front of more users.”
