Amazon elbows past Samsung for No. 2 tablet spot in Q4, Apple's iPad still No. 1

Amazon had some serious trombone action going on last year -- what with all the horn tooting it did about Kindle Fire demand. Turns out Amazon was on to something, as the company officially grabbed the No. 2 spot from Samsung for tablet sales in the last quarter. Amazon sold 3.89 million tablets during the fourth quarter, eclipsing Samsung's 2.14 million units. The numbers equal a 14 percent share of the tablet market for Amazon while Samsung grabbed an 8 percent share, down from 11 percent in the third quarter. The brisk sales came at a price for Amazon, which saw fourth-quarter profits drop since it sold Kindle Fire tablets at a loss. Amazon's tablet sales also were still below the 15.4 million iPads sold by Apple for the period. All the competition is apparently taking a bite out of Apple's juicy market share, however, which fell to 62 percent in 2011, compared to 87 percent in 2010. Samsung did manage to hold on to the No. 2 spot for the year, but with rumors already swirling about new LTE and 8-inch iPads plus the Galaxy Note 10.1, the tablet wars aren't likely to cool off anytime soon.