When the Kindle Fire was first announced, it sold 95,000 units its first day of pre-order availability in October 2011, and wise industry analysts using all the resources at their disposal predicted sales between 2.5 and 3 million units for the 7 inch color touchscreen tablet offering from Amazon in 2011. Then the device sold 255,000 units its first five days of presale launch, and analysts upped those estimates to between 3 and 4 million units for the holiday shopping season. But then Amazon stated in mid-December that the $199 Kindle Fire was the catalyst that was helping them sell 1 million Kindle devices each week, and analysts raised their estimates yet again.
Now that the holiday shopping season of 2011 is over, analysts are still scrambling to keep up with Kindle Fire demand. Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente is taking the Kindle Fire tablet very seriously, and has once again bumped up his sales estimates for that device, with a low-end estimate of 5.5 million units sold Q4 2011. This is up from his most recent estimate of 4.5 million units, and he contends that the number could be as high as 6 million.
Buy the Kindle Fire for $199
Other analysts discussing the impact of the budget priced tablet in 2011 struggle to come up with a number that could quantify how many sales Amazon was stealing from Apple. Parents looking to satisfy two or three children desiring tablets for Christmas could now purchase three Kindle Fire tablets for the price of one Apple iPad 2. And while no solid numbers are out, consumer-electronics analysts have pointed to numbers anywhere from 1 to 2 million units stolen from the iPad 2 by the Amazon Kindle Fire.
While this in no way affects the massive market share that Apple has developed in the tablet marketplace to any significant degree, the achievements of Amazon’s first tablet offering are more than significant. In less than three months, Amazon has solidly entrenched themselves in the coveted second spot in a growng tablet market that has seen manufacturers with years of consumer-electronics experience fail to grab a foothold to any significant degree in that marketplace. Samsung, Motorola, HP, and others have struggled to become viable options to the Apple iPad and iPad 2, and Amazon has stepped in with an iconic offering possessing a smaller screen and no cameras, offering a significantly lower retail price, and the Kindle Fire appears to be the most popular tablet entering 2012. Learn more about this tablet in our Amazon Kindle Fire Review.
Buy the Kindle Fire for $199
