Tablet Ownership Doubles: Kindle Fire Usage Surges: Tablet Use by Wealthy

The Kindle Fire and tablets are firing up app usage and doubling in ownership along with eReaders.

The share of adults in the United States who own tablets or eReaders nearly doubled reported Pew Research. The main reason for this surge apparently is the introduction of the lower-priced Kindle Fire and Nook as well as the price drop of eReaders below $100.

This is the kind of information we expected because Amazon sold a record number of Kindle Fire tablets.  When tablets like the HP TouchPad cost less than $200 they sold-out.

According to Flurry, Kindle Fire owners are big app users. In January there was that strong adoption of Kindle Fire, combined with significant downloads driven from the Amazon App Store that resulted in a massive surge in session usage that edged out the Galaxy Tab.

Unrounded, Kindle Fire apps represented 35.7% of sessions and Galaxy Tab represented35.6%. The Kindle Fire overtook the Galaxy Tab in just a few short months. Total Android tablet sessions in January more than tripled over November, with Galaxy Tab sessions increasing by more than 50%.

Pew Internet noted that the share of adults in the United States who own tablets went from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January. The same surge in growth also applied to eBook readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning one table or eReader went from 18% in December to 29% in January.

The surge in ownership of tablets was greatest higher levels of education and those living in households earning more than $75,000.

More than a third of those living in households earning more than $75,000 (36%) now own a tablet computer. And almost a third of those with college educations or higher (31%) own the devices. Also, those under age 50 saw a significant leap in tablet ownership.

Recent research showed that the Kindle Fire is not an iPad replacement but primarily used as and eReader.

The Kindle Fire was hottest selling and most-wished-for item on Amazon and named the most-gifted-promoted tablet by Wireless and Mobile News. Kindle Fire sales are predicted to beat all other tablets in 2012.

The Kindle Fire was under fire for a less than optimal user experience as well as preloaded 1-click buying that could let kids buy lots of items on Amazon.com easily.

The best features of the  Kindle Fire  are the dual-core processor, free Amazon Cloud storage, cloud accelerated mobile browser and of course the $199 price.  Previously reviewed shortcomings of the Kindle Fire include it uses Android 2.3(not a tablet OS) and lacks Bluetooth, cellular data, a camera and GPS.  The  Kindle Fire touchscreen is only 7 inches.

The Pew Internet Project is studying the ownership of both devices as part of its effort to understand how people consume media (text, video, and audio) on the devices, how people use them to access the internet, and how mobile connectivity has affected users.