Tablet survey: Apple products top holiday wish lists

Hoping to find an Apple tablet in your Christmas stocking? According to the results of a new survey, you're not alone.

For the second year running, a survey by online shopping site PriceGrabber shows Apple products at the top of consumer wish lists this holiday season.

A refreshed iPad (in fact, you could call it double-refreshed) since last Christmas, together with the introduction of the smaller 7.9-inch iPad Mini, have evidently enabled the Cupertino company to maintain strong consumer interest, with 63 percent of respondents hoping to receive a tablet this holiday season wishing for an iPad 3 or 4. Twenty-four percent said they’d like to receive an iPad Mini.

It was neither a Kindle Fire nor the Nexus 7 that placed third, with 22 percent saying they’d like to receive Samsung’s latest 5.5-inch Galaxy Note device instead. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD was the preferred choice for 20 percent of respondents, while 13 percent went for the Surface.

PriceGrabber’s survey, which allowed respondents to select as many tablets as they liked, involved 1,475 US-based online shoppers interviewed between October 24 and November 1, 2012.

Of course, the tablet market has changed greatly in the last 12 months, with big hitters like Amazon introducing its new range of Kindle Fire tablets. Google also entered the tablet arena this year with its Asus-made Android-powered Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 devices. The Nexus 10 doesn’t appear in the survey results, presumably because it was announced at the tail end of the period during which the research was conducted.

Lower-priced category

In the lower-priced tablet category – a category that’s expected to generate a lot of revenue for tech companies this holiday season – PriceGrabber asked consumers not which tablet they’d like to receive but instead which one they’re most likely to buy as a gift.

The iPad Mini was chosen by 45 percent of consumers, while 27 percent went for the Kindle Fire HD. The Nexus 7 and non-HD Kindle Fire tablet tied for third spot, each receiving 19 percent. Six percent selected one of Barnes & Noble’s tablet offerings.

PriceGrabber’s Rojeh Avanesian commented on the results in a release, saying, “Tablets continue to grow in popularity as a top holiday gift, especially with the emergence of lower priced tablets in the $200 to $300 price range targeting budget-conscience consumers.”

Does it surprise you to see the Galaxy Note in third spot among consumer preferences – placing higher than the Fire HD and Nexus 7 – or, considering its feature set and portability, does it make perfect sense?