Android Tablet Market Shares for Samsung Galaxy, Barnes and Noble Nook, Dell Streak

Steve Jobs claimed a high tablet market share at the IPad2 rollout

Many have said (iPad) is the most successful consumer product ever launched. Over 90% market share and our competitors were flummoxed.”

There are difficulties determining how many tablets

Ycombinator has a debate about the claims.

There will be hundreds of competing tablets in 2011 and there will be a whole range of screen size and form factor options from Android tablets and a constant stream of releases. Apple has introduced the iPad 2 and it looks solid but it will have fend off many current and new competitors that will have a faster cycle of releases and updates. Quadcore tablets using updated Nvidia chips should be available by the fourth quarter of 2011.

Android tablets can also allow swappable batteries, USB and other connections, dual monitors, tablet or smartphone docking stations, better cameras and open memory additions. Android tablets will also be able hit all of the price points from $50 up to $1500. Note: I expect that the price of used iPad 1.0 will by in the $100-200 range in 3 months on eBay when many choose to unload them for iPad 2.0. Annual releases of new iPads and new Android tablets will mean that perfectly usable used tablets will be dirt cheap from 2012 onwards. Children may end up getting those kinds of sub-$100 devices in 2-3 years instead of the current devices like Leapster or etch and sketch.

Apple will be able to maintain a solid niche and segment and they retain stronger market share than Macs did during the worst of the PC wars, but Apple is strategy is to accept smaller market share with an integrated product where they do not license out their operating system.

Estimates of sales for Android Tablets – Samsung, Nook, Streak

Samsung has claimed to have sold (shipped) 2 million Samsung Galaxy tablets in 2010 Apple Inc. says they sold 7.33 million iPads in the October-December period.

Barnes and Noble claimed that the Nook sold one million units for Christmas 2010 and that would mean that a total of 2 million Nooks (which use Android have been sold) If the Nook can secure a second place position for e-readers that could mean a 20-30% market share and perhaps 3 million to 4.5 million units in 2011.

IDC anticipated 2010 to close at 10.8 million e-reader units shipped worldwide, with the U.S. representing 72.4 percent of global shipments. IDC forecasts 14.7 million units to ship in 2011 and 16.6 million in 2012, with demand driven by price competition among e-paper-based device vendors, the introduction of color display e-readers, and the expansion of digital book and periodical content offerings across genres and languages.

Amazon was the market leader for the quarter with more than 1.1 million Kindle units shipped and a 41.5 percent share worldwide.

Pandigital, which has a U.S. focus for its Novel e-readers with models based not only on e-paper but also color LCD technology, came in second to Amazon worldwide and just edged out Barnes and Noble’s Nook in the third quarter of 2010. That may change when Q4 results come in – the U.S.-exclusive retailer market was a strong contender for the No. 3 position in Q3 and is expected to have good results in Q4 given its strong brand, competitive pricing for its e-paper-based products, and the introduction of the new NOOKcolor, which was a big holiday hit.

Sony was a distant No. 4 vendor with slightly more than 200,000 units shipped and an 8.4 percent worldwide share. Sony’s early lead in the North American e-reader market has been usurped by Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Motorola Xoom has ordered 700,000-800,000 units and first quarter 2011 sales may be 1 million units.

Dell Streak sales are claimed to be just below one million per year. Dell may be able to capture a modest 5% market share of Android based tablets in 2011 behind competitors like Samsung and Motorola selling close to 700,000 units during the year.