Computerworld

After iPad, Kindle Fire clear second choice

ChangeWave US survey finds 65 per cent plan to buy an iPad and 22 per cent a Kindle Fire; the others lag far behind

Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet will leapfrog most competitive offerings to quickly become number two in the market behind Apple's iPad, according to a survey conducted by ChangeWave Research.

The November survey of 3043 consumers in North America found that 65 per cent most plan to buy an iPad tablet, while 22 per cent said they planned to buy a Kindle Fire device.

Only 4 per cent are planning to purchase a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet, which comes in several sizes, according to ChangeWave.

Each of the other tablet manufacturers were preferred by 1 per cent or less interest of the respondents. The manufacturers of those devices include Motorola, Research in Motion, Dell, HTC, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba, ChangeWave reported.

The ChangeWave results didn't mention the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet that started shipping last week -- just after the Kindle Fire became available.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is "wreaking a devastating blow" to the second tier of tablet manufacturers, ChangeWave said in a statement.

A key reason for iPad's market dominance is a high customer satisfaction rating where 74% said they are "very satisfied" with the Apple device, ChangeWave noted. By comparison, other tablets combined got a 49% satisfaction rating.

The ChangeWave results are strikingly different than those from a Retrevo survey of more than 1,000 Americans. That survey, released earlier this month, found that 44% of respondents were considering the 7-in. Kindle Fire at $199, far more than the 12 per cent that said they would first consider the cheapest 9.7-in. iPad 2, priced at $499.

Forrester Research has projected that Kindle Fire sales could reach 5 million, and that the Nook Tablet 2 million by year's end.

Apple sold 11.1 million iPads in the third quarter, a record, Forrester added.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen , or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

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