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I'm not so sure the Kindle Fire and the Nook are in the same "market" as the iPad, and thus I'm not sure it means a whole lot to say that one outsells another, or even to pit them against one another in terms of "market share". It's like saying that wristwatches outsold radio-alarmclocks last year. Yes, they both tell time, but they're not comparable.

This post has been edited by TeaEarleGreyHot: 17 February 2012 - 06:22 AM

I think that it's interesting that no one actually knows how many sales these other companies have, because they don't release those numbers. Some release shipping numbers, which as we found out with a number of companies, isn't the same thing at all.

In reality, the only one who knows how many Fires were sold is Amazon, and like with all their previous Kindles, they ain't talking. Samsung as well isn't talking. It's been about 8 months since they announced that they would no longer give out the number of tablets and smartphones they shipped (not sold. They never gave those numbers).

From what we see, shipped numbers fail to give us useful data until at least three quarters have gone by. We can take Motorola as an example. The first quarter they shipped about 500,000 tablets. The second about 200,000, and the third, about 100,000. The problem is that all those tablets are counted in the 2011 numbers for marketshare, when it's clear that only a part of that were sales. They likely sold about 200,000 of the first quarter's shipments, hence the replacement number, and about 100,000 of the second quarter's, shipments. If we want to be really generous, we can assume that they sold a total of about half of whT was shipped, but it could be as low as 300,000. But the companies who do this comparison just total all the shipped numbers and use that. Highly useless. And then what about returns? Those are never known, much less counted in. Devices that sell poorly are much more likely to have greater returns as a percentage than those that are much more popular.

But when web usage is accounted for, as well as Ad pages, the iPad seems to have about a 90% marketshare. Can it really be that over 49% of the tablets sold are using just 10% of the mobile web use or Ad pages? Highly unlikely.

Something is fishy with these marketshare numbers.

melgross, on 17 February 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

Remember these are sales figures for the quarter. The usage for things like ads and general web usage is based on the installed based.

TeaEarleGreyHot, on 17 February 2012 - 06:21 AM, said:

i think you might be missing the bigger picture. both are tablets, both companies among the largest hardware vendors in the world, both contain the 2 most popular mobile operating systems by far and yet the pricing and sales are completely backwards.

iPad is priced 2-3 times higher but has sold 2-3 times more. the fact that they may or may not be in the same market is immaterial because this is unlike any other consumer electronics trend.

TeaEarleGreyHot, on 17 February 2012 - 06:21 AM, said:

And yet the Kindle Fire is the most successful Android based tablet to date.

veggiedude, on 17 February 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

I'm not sure it is appropriate to call the Kindle Fire an Android tablet. I don't think the owners of the trademark would consider it so.

"Apple shipped 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011, good for 57 percent of the overall tablet market. Amazon’s low-cost Kindle Fire tablet accounted for 14 percent of all tablet shipments in the fourth quarter with 3.9 million units shipped."

What the article fails to mention is that the Kindle Fire started selling on November 15, the halfway point for the fourth quarter of 2011. So the statistics are for iPads selling over a 3 month period, and the Kindle Fire over a month and a half. That's a significant difference and puts the KF much closer to the iPad in terms of sales over the same time period than suggested in this article.

MutantPie, on 17 February 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

That is only true if it is, you know, true.

Yes Amazon did not have the entire quarter to sell the fire, but you surmise that "puts the KF much closer to the iPad in terms of sales over the same time period[.]"

As long as we are basing our arguments on suppositions, how about this one?

iPad sales for the fourth quarter we primarily clustered during the prime gift buying periods of mid-November to the near end of December and that puts the iPad much further to the KF in terms of sales over the same time period.

Rather, I contend that we do not know how many more KFs would have sold had they been available earlier, and we do not know exactly if and when the iPads sales were clustered. Neither of our arguments may be considered actual truths, but mine has just as least as much a chance of being accurate as yours. You assume an average spread evenly over a three month period, I assume a historic rate of sales that tends to reflect the holidays.

Judges?

This post has been edited by MacTechAspen: 17 February 2012 - 09:21 AM

If iPad 3 has retina display, that will make reading on it a much more enjoyable experience. That will for sure kill my plan of getting a Kindle Fire.

melgross, on 17 February 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

But wait! Kindle is the Number 1 selling product on Amazon, Number 1 Most Wished For, #1 Most Awesomest, Coolest, Bestest, tablet, electronic device, food processor, etc., etc., etc...according to Amazon...

MacTechAspen, on 17 February 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

Yes, I made the assumption that there would have been (any) sales of a product (in an adjacent period to the one when that product sold very well) if it had been available. As I made no other projections, your other statements are meaningless.

Again with the tired old "shipped" BS. Apple Sold that 15.4 million. Amazon cannot say the same and refuses to report actual numbers like apple does. Untill they do articles like this are just conjecture and hearsay.

TeaEarleGreyHot, on 17 February 2012 - 06:21 AM, said:

Hi,

I agree with you, but we should tell Amazon that. They took direct aim at Apple and the iPad in their latest commercial.

http://www.androidta...commercial.html

It's too bad it would further obliterate competition as I think competition is strong, but Apple should drop the price of the iPad 2 down the price of the Kindle Fire when version 3 comes out and then watch the 14% dwindle to about 1%...at best

Cheers,
Brian