Tablet Ownership has Doubled to 19%, According to Pew Study

According to a study that Pew just released, 19% of American adults now own a tablet. That’s double what it was at the beginning of last December. Proof that tablets well and truly are taking over the world.

The rapid growth is in part an illusion, however. Pew tracked a temporary lull in growth during the second half of 2011, which, if taken with the massive spike around Christmas, means that the lull might just have been done so the tablets could be given as gifts. Even factoring this in, however, this is still an impressive growh rate.

In the middle of December, 10% of adults had a tablet. A month later, 19% had tablets. 9% of the adult population is 18.6 million people, meaning at least that many were sold. Of course, the sample size was pretty small at just 3,000 people, but before you call these numbers bunk, keep in mind that this poll was conducted over the phone, not the internet. That should preclude any high tech skewing.

While there aren’t hard numbers for most manufacturers, its a safe bet much of this growth is related to the launch of the budget tablets Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Amazon was claiming to be selling millions of Kindles in the weeks leading up to Christmas, most of which were Kindle Fires. And Barnes and Noble claims to have sold millions too.

Ereaders also had a stellar season, charting similarly explosive growth. This is, again, likely to a significant price cut on the devices. The average price dropped to just $99.00, while one model of Kindle sells for $79.00.

As tablets eat away from traditional computers, we should start seeing more actual productivity software being released for the machines. While Windows is still by far the most popular software platform out there (thanks in no small part to large software companies picking up licenses in bulk, even if they don’t use every single copy), it is quickly losing ground to iOS and Android devices. We may soon see a time when our portable tablets are finally more useful than our not so portable desktops.

electronista Photo by : Alfred Lui