The iPad started the tablet market and it’s been dominating it ever since that moment, but late last year the small, 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire made its big entry, lowering the tablet entry point to merely $199. And the drop in prices will change the way the tablet market looks by 2016, according to ABI Research who risked to look into the future.
“The majority of new entrant media tablet models have been in the sub-$400 segment that focuses on growth markets like India and China,” group director of consumer research Jeff Orr said. “The strong wave of growth in this segment over the next few years is expected to be driven by the adoption in emerging markets.”
Emerging markets is the key word here as the developed Western countries seem to have less incentives to look into slightly inferior but cheaper tablets. This will mark a change from the way the tablet market looks today, dominated by the iPad and large screen tablets. Actually, 75% of all tablets sold in 2011 had a screen larger than 9 inches.
What makes product like the Amazon Kindle Fire important in that regard, is that unlike underbaked Chinese tablets, having a tablet like the Fire or the rumored very affordable Google Nexus Tablet, the software works smoothly and there’s some kind of an app catalog included.
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