In addition to dominating US tablet sales, the Apple iPad also dominates online tablet research performed by US consumers, according to data released in September 2011 by Compete. Between February and July 2011, about seven in 10 (69%) online tablet researches searched for information about the iPad only.
In comparison, another 14% performed generic searches for the term “tablet” and 6% searched for data on the Blackberry Playbook only. This means the percentage of tablet researchers only looking for iPad data was more than 11 times greater than the percentage looking for the next-most-popular tablet product.
Only 5% of iPad Researchers Cross-Research
In total, only 4% of participants in the Compete user sample researched more than one tablet brand. Even in this small cross-section, iPad researchers showed the most loyalty, as only 4.7% researched more than one tablet.
Conversely, more than one-third (35.7%) of Google Chromebook researchers looked for data on more than one tablet. In addition, 30.6% of Samsung Galaxy researchers looked for data on multiple tablets, while Blackberry Playbook researchers showed somewhat higher levels of loyalty (23.1% looked for data on more than one tablet).
Blackberry Interest Spikes in May
In May, Apple lost some market share to Blackberry. About one in five (21%) of people who fit Compete’s criteria in May were searching for Blackberry Playbook or looking at a Playbook product page.
This is more than double the 8.5% of users researching Playbooks the previous month. Meanwhile, the percentage researching the iPad dropped 16%. Compete analysis indicates this anomaly is probably due to the release of the Blackberry Playbook on April 19.
The spike in interest in Playbooks petered out quickly, though. By June, patterns of interest among these brands were similar to those recorded in February and March.
ChangeWave: iPad Dominates Consumer Plans
Eighty-five percent of consumers plan to buy an iPad, according to an August 2011 ChangeWave Research survey. No other tablet manufacturer has significant share of planned future consumer purchases. However, the Samsung Galaxy leads iPad’s competitors with 4% of consumers planning a Galaxy purchase, followed by RIM Playbook (2%) and Motorola Xoom (1%). In addition, 2% of future consumer tablet buyers preferred the HP touchpad, which was subsequently discontinued.
