Around a quarter of adults in the US own a tablet and the split between Android and iOS is approaching 50-50.

These figures come from two separate Pew Research surveys.

Data collected as part of the Pew Internet & American Life Project between July 16 and August 7 2012 found that 25% of all U.S. adults have a tablet computer.

Meanwhile a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, in collaboration with the Economist Group, which found that among US adults 22% own a tablet and another 3% regularly use a tablet owned by someone else in the home, has the following information regarding brand of tablet:

The report Device Ownerships comments that the advent of lower priced tablets in late 2011 has brought about the marked change in the proportion of Android tablets between the 2011 and 2012.

The latest results show that just over half, 52%, of tablet owners have an iPad, compared with 81% a year ago. Among Android-based devices, 21%, own a Kindle Fire and 8% the Samsung Galaxy.

As this survey was conducted before the introduction of Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD it is likely that Android's share of the market has already jumped to make it  equal to, or even dominant over Apple's.