Amazon’s cut-price Kindle Fire tablet seems to be doing quite well in the overcrowded Android tablet market. Research outfit IHS claims Amazon managed to ship 3.8 million tablets in the fourth quarter of 2011, seizing 14 percent of the Android tab market.

The success is made even more impressive by the fact that Amazon started selling the Kindle Fire in November and the tablet has yet to ship in some major markets, namely Europe.

In terms of overall tablet shipments, Apple still commanded a 57 percent share in Q4, but its share is slowly declining. Apple had a 62 percent share in 2011, while it grabbed 87 percent in 2010. Interestingly, Apple is also facing competition from its own ranks.

Although the Kindle Fire and other Android tablets are eating into the iPad share, quite a few users seem to be choosing the iPhone 4S over the iPad.