Tablet (read: iPad and Kindle) ownership almost doubled over the holidays

According to Pew Research, tablet ownership among U.S. consumers nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent over the holiday season.

The Pew project conducted three surveys, one in mid-December and two at the beginning of 2012. The results show a marked increase in ownership of tablets, e-readers, and the hybrids that exist somewhere between those two categories.

Pew and Venturebeat seem eager to credit the jump almost purely to Amazon Kindle Fire and other, similar low-priced entrants. That's not entirely unfair since, frankly, cheap and good-enough sells. These are also U.S. numbers, which is the only market Amazon is competing in at the moment.

Apple will likely give us iPad 2 holiday numbers during their Q1 2012 conference call tomorrow. Amazon so far has declined to give specific Kindle numbers, and that may not change any time soon.

One thing is for certain -- it may finally be a tablet market, not just an iPad market, and a growing one at that. (And Apple hasn't even release the anticipated iPad 3 yet, so stay tuned.)

Source: Pew Research Center via VentureBeat