After a bump in market share from the popularity of the Amazon Kindle Fire, android tablets once again are losing out to the iPad. Analyst firm IDC reports Apple’s iPad increased it’s market share from around 55% to 68% from Q4 2011 to Q1 2012. While the Fire pushed to around 17% market share in Q4, it has now dropped to a mere 4%. That puts it behind Samsung, and slightly ahead of Lenovo and Barnes & Nobles. Overall, the outlook for android tablets remains uncertain. Unable to mount a real challenger to the iPad, the android system may have Google’s new tablet as it’s main hope to establish itself against Apple. With Windows 8 tablets around the corner, it will be even more difficult for android to pull customers away from the iPad. As the tablet market will only continue to grow, the question becomes how big a player will android be?
