iPad gulps more than two-thirds of market as Amazon’s Fire falls from grace

A whopping 91 percent of tech moms want it for Mother’s Day instead of flowers, teachers deem it the future of education (though DoJ disagrees), it’s used everywhere for work, has managed to break Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry – and yet it shows no sign of slowing down.

And even as rivals face downturn, folks are picking their iPads like there’s no tomorrow. This is the crux of latest market tablet survey by research firm IDG which pegged Apple’s worldwide tablet share in Q1 2012 at 68 percent, up from 54.7-percent in the year-ago quarter.

Apple’s growth largely came at the expense of Amazon’s Kindle Fire which plummeted from 16.8 percent share in Q4 2011 to just four percent share in Q1 2012. That’s a staggering 12.8-percentage points market share loss in just one quarter. Another way to look at it: Amazon shipped only 700,000 Kindle Fire units in Q1 2012…

According to IDC, worldwide tablet market in the first quarter of 2012 was 17.4 million units strong, of which 11.8 million were iPads. The Cupertino company grew its worldwide share from 54.7 percent in the year-ago quarter to 68 percent in the first quarter of this year.

With Apple shinning at the top spot, Samsung ranked second and Amazon was third. Lenovo finished the quarter in fourth place and Barnes & Noble was fifth.

Apple’s gain was Amazon’s loss as its Kindle Fire tablet plummeted from 16.8 percent share in the year-ago quarter to just four percent share in Q1 2012. Consumers are obviously responding well to an all-purpose tablet compared to a content consumption Kindle Fire, IDC noted.

IDC quoted its research director Tom Mainelli:

Apple reasserted its dominance in the market this quarter, driving huge shipment totals at a time when all but a few Android vendors saw their numbers drop precipitously after posting big gains during the holiday buying season.

Mainelli also observed that the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble (now in bed with Microsoft) figured out early on that the only way to compete with Apple is to price their tablets “at notably lower price points”.

The iPad’s universal appeal has seen the device hit the ground running across the globe, spanning age, gender, nationality and even income. And while Apple’s focus on premium quality is paying off big time, rivals are still clueless, scrambling to release hastily designed Android tablets with short shelf life.

Tablet shipments declined -34 percent from the holiday quarter’s record-breaking 28.2 million units, which was expected. IDC thinks shipments will rebound as Android backers bomb the market with thinner, lighter, faster products in the second quarter and beyond.

I’d rather change my strategy if I were them.

Apple’s got it all figured out a long time ago…

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Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Besides, I just can’t get enough of that voiceover talent.

So… Are you in the market for an Android tablet?

Anyone?