Kindle Fire Drives US Android Tablet Dominance

The United States is dominating the Android tablet race, with Amazon’s Kindle Fire family of tablets leading the way. A full 59% of all Android tablets seen by apps with Localytics integrated are based in the US, and over half of those are Kindle Fires or Kindle Fire HDs.

In fact, outside of the United States, the Kindle Fire practically doesn’t exist - 89% of Amazon’s family of tablets live in America, with most of the rest in Great Britain. After those two, no other country has even one percent of worldwide Kindle Fires.

While Amazon’s issues achieving international distribution of their hardware have been widely reported, it is interesting to note that should they get the distribution part right, their US success suggests they could quickly dominate the Android tablet market worldwide. Even in Canada, which is often the first non-US country to receive an American company’s products, the Kindle Fire is currently unavailable.

That may be changing, however; at an event launching the Kindle Paperwhite to Canada, Amazon’s VP in charge of the Kindle noted that they are working hard to launch the Fire lineup worldwide. This should provide some incentive for Android tablet developers who hope that the devices can achieve the kind of market penetration they have in the US.

Android tablet developers: Get into the Amazon App Store

In the meantime, any Android developer with a focus on tablets should be distributing their apps in the Amazon App Store. The degree to which Amazon has dominated their most serious geographical market should speak to the future potential, and since Google Play is unavailable on the Kindle Fire family, adding Amazon’s App Store as a distribution channel is important.

Additionally, as raw user numbers don’t always translate into engaged users, definitely split your analytics data out by device. Localytics allows you to compare engagement metrics like retention, session length and sessions per month by device, telling you not only where the largest groups of users are, but which are the most valuable and engaged groups.

Methodology

We base our studies at Localytics on usage of apps with Localytics installed as an analytics and in-app marketing solution. With insights into over 500 million unique devices, Localytics’ studies provide a unique perspective into mobile and smart user behaviors.

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