Study shows 25% of Americans own a tablet

In a report released yesterday, the Pew Internet & American Life Project puts ownership of tablet computing devices at 25 percent among American adults. This breaks down almost evenly into "iPads" and "everything else," with 52 percent of tablet owners using an Apple device and 48 percent with some flavor of Android-powered tablet. The growth in tablet ownership over the last year has been tremendous, with the study pointing out that 68 percent of tablet-owning adults have purchased their device within the past twelve months.

The 2011 numbers painted a very iPad-centric picture, with Apple grabbing about 80 percent of the market, so the recent swing toward Android is significant. The Pew Research Center, which sponsored the study, speculates that the large jump in the number of available Android devices in the past year has driven adoption tremendously; it also points out that the survey results were finalized prior to the public release of Google's Nexus 7 or Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD, so the reality might be even more Android-y.

The data shows that out of all the device manufacturers, Amazon has done the most to drive Android adoption with its Kindle Fire tablets. The Kindle Fire shows up as the most popular Android tablet, holding the largest market share—21 percent—of any device save the iPad. This has put an Android tablet into the hands of e-reader buyers who might not otherwise have purchased a tablet, giving Android an "in" with consumers that traditional tablet devices don't have.

Android continues to claim the top smartphone spot among US adults; 46 percent of smartphone owners run Android, with iPhones at 38 percent and a beleaguered BlackBerry trailing at 10 percent. The study closes with a word on brand "stickiness," noting that Android tablet owners tend to have Android smartphones, and most iPad users tend to have iPhones. There are obvious benefits to having a smartphone and tablet which live in the same ecosystem, but clearly there are some crossover users out there—32 percent of smartphone-owning iPad users have an Android phone, and 29 percent of smartphone-owning Android users have an iPhone.