Amazon and B&N Makes Up to 40 Percent of Android Tablet Sales?

Strategy Analytics reported that around 10.5 million Android tablets were shipped during the fourth quarter of 2011. That makes more than a 300-percent jump from that of last year’s, while the increase in Android tablet shipments means that Android devices now make up about 39 percent of overall tablet sales.

Mark Spoonauer at Laptop Magazine asked what role do the Amazon Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet played. Surprisingly, about 40 percent of the 10.5 million tablets were NOOK Tablet or Kindle Fire devices.

While both tablets run on Google Android, the NOOK Tablet and Kindle Fire both ship with highly modified versions of Android, and neither includes the Android Market. Hackers, however, have figured out how to install Android 4.0 or a more Google-like version of Android 2.3 on the Kindle Fire by replacing the bootloader as well as the recovery software and loading CyanogenMod on the tablet.

Work is underway with the NOOK Tablet as well, and hackers have already figured out how install the Android Market or to sideload apps that don’t come from the B&N Shop on that tablet.

But it’s likely that most NOOK Tablet and Kindle Fire owners are using the pre-installed software on their tablets, which means that while Android tablets are gaining in market share, some of the most popular “Android” tablets don’t look or feel like they’re running the software that Google designed, and don’t download apps, music, movies, or ebooks from Google’s online stores.

via liliputing