Major hit? Certainly. iPad Killer? Not so fast...
The Amazon Kindle Fire provided a major boost to tablet sales in the last quarter of 2011, with some analysts projecting upwards of 4 million or more units shipping. The Android-based Kindle Fire bridges the gap between Amazon's line of eReaders and the world of tablets, and with a low entry price of $199, some analysts believed it could take a major bite out of iPad sales during the holidays.
Instead, Apple posted record earnings, with a total revenue of $46 billion of the quarter. The quarter also saw over 15 million iPads sold, which tops any other quarter for the iPad. So much for the Kindle Fire making a dent in iPad sales.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. I predicted in December that the Kindle Fire wouldn't do much to iPad sales in the short term, though it may actually help the iPad in the long run. While they are both tablets, they have a different target audience. And while the Kindle Fire is helped out by millions of Kindle owners wanting to upgrade to a better eReader and people who simply don't want to spent $499 on an iPad, the iPad will be helped out by converting some of these to tablet users.
But the competition between the iPad and the Kindle Fire was more media-based than company-based. No doubt, Amazon hoped to take a bite out of iPad sales, but their main target was the Barnes and Noble Nook Color, which is also a color tablet running on Android and has a similar price tag to the Amazon Kindle Fire. And it certainly looks like Amazon hit their target.
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