Animoca Data: Intel Strikes Back, Grabs Nearly 10% of Google Play US Tablet New Users For Holiday Pe
Although it dominates the PC industry, the chipmaker Intel has been relatively absent from smartphones and tablets in recent years. But, according to Animoca data for Google Play in the US, the Intel-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 exploded from practically nothing on December 24, 2013, to nearly 10% of new Android tablet users by January 7, 2014, making it the #1 new Android tablet in the US during that period. Eighty-six percent of all those Tab 3 10.1 devices we counted were recorded on Christmas day, suggesting that the device was an especially popular gift this holiday season.
Most Android tablets are based on ARM architecture and built by companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, but the Tab 3 10.1 contains an Intel Atom Z2560 system on a chip (SoC). Thanks to a partnership with Google, Intel evolved the Atom family of processors in netbooks into a class of modern mobile processors that today supports the Android operating system on Intel’s mature x86 architecture. Other Intel-inside Android mobile devices include the Acer Liquid C1, ASUS FonePad, Casper VIA A6108, Etisalat E-20, Lenovo K900, Motorola RAZR i, Prestigio MultiPhone 5430 and Safaricom Yolo.
The other two models in the Galaxy Tab 3 series, the Tab 3 8.0 and 7.0, did not perform as well as the Tab 3 10.1, despite being more attractively priced and despite having smaller form factors that in recent years have enjoyed considerable success. Samsung opted to equip each tablet in the Tab 3 series with different processors from different manufacturers; it’s not a decision we understand because we would normally expect core hardware similarities in a product series. Whatever the reason, it is the Intel-powered Galaxy Tab 3 which has been catapulted to the top of the tablet hill, and not the other two models.
Samsung’ older Tab 2 devices round off the top 3 slots, with the Google Nexus 7 coming in fourth. As we have come to expect in recent times, the Samsung Galaxy brand appears frequently in this list. Also worthy of mention is that we are seeing Walmart flex its muscles, with two tablets in the US Top 10 coming from the American retail giant—the Nextbook 8 HD and the RCA 7, both budget offerings. Aside from Google’s Nexus 7, Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD and the Walmart devices, this appears to have been a merry Christmas for Samsung tablets in general and Intel Atom in particular.
To obtain these results we sampled 2 million new unique Animoca users on Google Play US between December 24, 2013 and January 7, 2014 (tablets only). Note that our sample is limited to Google Play, therefore devices tied to other app stores (like Kindle devices, which use the Amazon Appstore) are excluded.
Disclosure: Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corporation, is an investor in Animoca.