Amazon and Samsung are running away with the battle for Android tablet market share

Given the huge number of Android-based tablets on the market, you’d think the Android hardware market for tablets would be massively fragmented.

But according to new data that app analytics service Localytics is publishing tomorrow, that’s not what’s happening. Rather, the big tabs are getting the lion’s share of the market, increasing their lead on other tablets.

That’s especially true for Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung’s stable of tablets.

For example, the number of Amazon’s 7″ Kindle Fires that Localytics saw grew 322 percent from November to the end of December. Samsung’s Galaxy Note II grew 80 percent, it’s popular Tab 2 10.1″ tablet grew 78 percent, and the smaller Tab 2 7″ grew 72 percent. The Nook also grew, though not as swiftly, picking up an additional 62 percent.

Localytics provides data on user behavior for tens of thousands of apps that were installed on over 60 million devices as of mid-2012, which should form a significant enough sample size to at least be indicative of what’s happening in the market. Each device that runs any app that uses Localytics’ services registers as a unique devices in the company’s numbers.

The data also showed a move in iDevice market share. According to the company, the iPhone 5 now constitutes 18 percent of all iPhones in use, with the 4S still retaining the crown of most popular iPhone, with 40 percent of the market.

And the new iPad mini? Localytics’ data suggests it’s selling a little slower than the iPad 4, with the 4th-generation iPad clocking in at about eight percent of the overall iPad market, and the mini picking up six percent.

We’ll know for sure if those numbers are accurate in just a couple of weeks, when Apple reports its Q1 2013 results.