IFR Reports: Significant Shelf Share Shifts for Tablets in USA

June 30, 2011 - PRLog -- APPLE still remains the #1 shelved Tablet brand with 55% retail shelf share in June 2011, down 38% from January. APPLE was also the only brand in June to show a decrease of shelf share, mainly due to the influx of new Tablets entering the market.

While most retailers maintained their APPLE assortment and added additional brands of Tablet SKUS to their shelves, Fry’s Electronics, Micro Center and Sam’s Club have reduced their APPLE assortment to make space for other brands.

Top Brands

Retailers shelved MOTOROLA, BLACKBERRY and ACER Tablets aggressively creating new brand leaders in June.

MOTOROLA is currently the 2nd most placed brand on shelves climbing to 10.4% in June while BLACKBERRY (rank #3) had the fastest launch to shelf from 0% in May to 9.1% in June. ACER (rank #4) also had a rapid shelf share increase from 0% to 7.2% during the same time period.

Other established brands (with Tablets on retail shelves since January 2011 or earlier) did not grow shelf share as aggressively as the leading 4 brands.

ARCHOS, SAMSUNG and VIEWSONIC, ranked 5th, 6th and 7th in June 2011 respectively, have yet to gain an individual shelf presence higher than 6% during 2011.

What’s Next?

HP enters retailers in July with their WebOS HP TouchPad. The Lenovo IdeaPad and ThinkPad are also imminent. Another anticipated Tablet entering the market possibly during H2 2011 is Amazon. The next few months will be interesting!

As manufacturers create compelling offerings to compete against the APPLE iPad, IFR research shows that retailers will create the necessary shelf space quickly – more quickly than other types of products, proving that the Tablet landscape is a highly competitive one.

IFR Top Shelved Model HitList & Pricing

During CES, over 40 Tablets were shown and/or announced, yet only a small fraction made it to retail floors as of June 2011. With the exception of APPLE, the majority of Tablets found during June have been Android based. Windows 7 has yet to achieve significant traction in the retail space.

In June 2011, IFR reports the ACER ICONIA A500 as the top shelved model in the USA with prices as low as $449 USD. The MOTOROLA XOOM WIFI MZ604 is the 2nd most shelved model with prices as low as $569 USD.

The club retailers tend to carry pricing a bit lower than the typical retailer, but the most competitive price points are in the $499 and $599 range for many Tablets.

IFR Monitoring helps retailers and manufacturers measure relevant causal Shelf, Print Advertising and Internet share across the country and around the world. IFR Monitoring exists in over 60 countries, and is part of the GfK Group, the No. 4 market research company worldwide.

For questions, please contact James Kennedy at: james.kennedy@ifrmonitoring.com