‘Tis the season to buy a tablet — preferably an iPad — according to a 451 Research ChangeWave report obtained by Fortune. Among the findings of a November survey of 2,480 ChangeWave members:
- 13% planned to buy a tablet within the next 90 days, more than double the level three months ago and comparable to the past two holiday seasons.
- 72% said they planned to buy an Apple (AAPL) iPad, a 17% surge since August. “Apple continues to hold a tight grip” on demand, write ChangeWave’s Andy Golub and Sayon Deb.
- Interest in Microsoft (MSFT) tablets increased 1 percentage point. Interest in Samsung’s Galaxy tablets, Google’s (GOOG) Nexus and Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire all fell.
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Source: ChangeWave Among planned iPad buyers, more than half (55%) said they would buy the iPad Air and 16% the iPad mini with Retina display.
ChangeWave’s 25,000 members tend to be early adopter types, richer and more tech savvy than the general public. But their survey responses have proved in the past to be pretty good forward indicators of where the U.S. market is headed.