Kindle Fire Grabs Second Place in Tablet Sales behind iPad
Business information services company IHS iSuppli reported that the Amazon Kindle Fire sold close to four million units in the fourth quarter of 2011.
While this number is way off from sales of the market-leading Apple iPad, this was still enough to place the Kindle Fire at second behind the iPad in tablet sales.
The fourth quarter of 2011 was all Apple’s as usual, as the Cupertino, CA electronics giant shipped 18.6 million iPads, almost six times as much as the 3.9 million figure of the Kindle Fire. Barclays Capital estimated 5.5 million Kindle Fire sold in the same time frame, but at any rate, this is still a far cry from 18.6 million.
On the other hand, Kindle Fire is showing a lot of promise due to its low price of $199, Android OS and Amazon ecosystem. Barclays estimated that the Kindle Fire’s content revenues may reach almost a billion dollars this year, as more and more consumers seemingly want to see what this affordable tablet can do for them.
Tablets have been flying off retail store shelves since the iPad started the craze in 2010. iSuppli’s statistics also mentioned that there were close to 65 million tablets shipped worldwide in 2011, and there may be almost 300 million of these units sold by 2015.
As expected, the iPad comprised the lion’s share of these shipments, though a related projection from eMarketer states that Apple’s dominance of the tablet market may wane slightly in coming years.
That said, Apple is still expected to be the undisputed market leader in tablets for the next few years or so.
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