AppleInsider › Forums › Mobile › iPad › IDC: Kindle Fire to push iPad below 60% market share in Q4
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

IDC: Kindle Fire to push iPad below 60% market share in Q4 - Page 3

post #81 of 104
12/16/11 at 11:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

1) The Fire and Nook are not tablets.

2) They do not run Android.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/nook...ble/1100437663

"World's Best Reading Experience + Tablet Essentials"



http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Am...pf_rd_i=507846

"The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet.."


I'm sorry, they both advertise themselves as tablets, so that's what they'll be judged as. No, they do not have the Android name as they are not using the Google apps that allow that branding, but their core is a modified version of the Android OS. They just can't paste Android on the outside of it
Reply
Reply
post #82 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post

Tho not breaking it down by specific model, Amazon did offer a press release a couple days back bragging of over one million kindle devices sold per week since the Fire was released.

That as interesting in what it doesn't say as what it does say.

Somewhere, there have been estimates that 3.9-5 Million Fires would be sold this year.


For sake of discussion, let's assume that Fire Sales == Fire Shipments to consumers and to resellers.


The Fire began shipping (was released) Nov 14. The assumption is that there were quite a few preorders.

Last Monday, Dec 12, was the 4th full week of Fire sales/shipments.

January 2, 2012 will be the 7th full week of Fire sales/shipments.


To attain a conservative estimate of 4 Million sales/shipments in 7 weeks, Amazon would need to sell/ship 572 Thousand Fires per week.

Realistically though, sales/shipments should be expected to reduce drastically by Dec 24 -- or 5.7 weeks.

So a reasonable calculation would be 4 Million Fires sold/shipped in 5.7 weeks == 701 Thousand Fires per week.


So, here are the questions:

1) Is Amazon selling/shipping the (between 570-700 Thousand) number of Fires necessary to attain 4 Million Fire sales/shipments in 2011?

2) Do you believe that the "more than 1 million Kindle devices sold per week" includes sales/shipments of more than 1 Million Kindle Fires per week?

3) If yes to number 2), why wouldn't Amazon brag about it?

4) If no to number 2), what meaning, if any, can be ascribed to Amazon's claim?


If you make the category broad enough, the claim loses any meaning...

Amazon: "We sell nnnn books per week".

Observer: "Yeah, So What? Compared to What", Which book sells best? How many?"


New York City has 7 major suspension bridges -- each of which is the longest in the world!

"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
post #83 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Heh. This is what happens when you take a handheld Unix computer (i.e., one of the most rock-solid operating systems ever made, without the IP encumbrance of Java) and make it easy to use for the masses. This is what happens when "IT" becomes "I" and what "I" want to do with it, not some geek telling me I should install this or tweak that or scan something unintelligible. Where doing something doesn't mean having to "call IT" or "check with my computer guy".

Legitimate I/O? That's called cloud storage. Otherwise even if you don't use the cloud there's plenty of wired and wireless transfer options. USB thumb drives seem positively ancient now. USB drives are now the equivalent of when 5.25" floppies went bye-bye. Syncing data between apps? Again, cloud and Dropbox, wireless iTunes, Airplay, etc. Dock port? Nice for charging. For everything else, well, that's what Macs are for, not iPads. Not at this stage, but stay tuned.

There are some things you no longer need a Mac to do. The list grows day by day.

Apple learnt a lot. They are significantly responsible FOR the demise of DRM. iTunes Match will essentially grant a amnesty for massive amounts of pirated music. There's literally no other major tech company out there that has been as pro-customer and pro-developer as Apple. Just wait for the Siri API to open up.

Apple knows what it needs to do to compete, and that is to make products and software that works well within a controlled but not ridiculously-confied system.

Guess who's anti-customer? Try playing back YouTube on Xbox360's latest updates. Firstly, it took years to get YouTube on your console. Secondly, you need to PAY ie. Xbox Live GOLD. Still, Xbox360 gaming is light years beyond trying to game on a PC nowadays.

+++ Great Reply!
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
post #84 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by inkswamp View Post

Exactly. People keep comparing Android to Windows circa 1990, but there's the critical difference. Microsoft maintained an iron-grip on Windows and there weren't dozens of forks and variations and proprietary UI layers in the mix. The hardware varied back then but the OS didn't. Windows and PCs were a one-to-many relationship. Android and the hardware is turning into a many-to-many relationship. If Android is going to mutate like this, it's sort of disingenuous to group all these variations under one name.

Good analysis!

I would suggest that metastasize is a better description of what's happening to Android!
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
post #85 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

Good analysis!

I would suggest that metastasize is a better description of what's happening to Android!

There are a lots OSes that use Linux but we don't call all these proprietary forks Linux so it makes sense that we wouldn't call Amazon's Fire OS Android. Hell, if we want to get technical all Kindles run Linux but that doesn't really help consumers or developers.

"Goodbyeee…"

Reply

"Goodbyeee…"

Reply
post #86 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pridon View Post

Amazon has to pay a margin to the retailers.. I think I read that KF is available in 16,000 points of sale. I would expect at least a $50 mark up on those, so Amazon would only net $150. It also has to absorb the negatvie impact of at least 10% return rate that some have forecast.

Also Amazon must absorb at least $10-15 in free shipping.

Will the Q1 Market share iPad market share exceed 100% when KF returns exceed the Q1 KF sales?

The big question... When will Fire refurbs come available and how much will they sell for?
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
post #87 of 104
12/16/11 at 12:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

2) Do you believe that the "more than 1 million Kindle devices sold per week" includes sales/shipments of more than 1 Million Kindle Fires per week?

If they had meant they were shipping over a milion Kindle Fire a week, they would have said they. They said the Kindle family of products. From the other article about their statement, "The press release declared that customers have purchased more than a million devices from the Kindle family per week for the third straight week. The Kindle Fire is joined by the standard Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Keyboard."

So they could have sold 300k of each and the statement would be true. It doesn't mean millions of Fires are being sold. It doesn't mean it isn't either tho. Amazon is intentionally vague and appears to think people are stupid and can't see thru what they say. The Fire is selling like shit or else they would give numbers.
Reply
Reply
post #88 of 104
12/16/11 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shock Me View Post

If IDC's premise is true, then maybe Android developers can start focusing on tablet-sized interfaces that scale seamlessly from smaller screens to larger adding more interface elements as size allows.

They got started already with Android 4.0 UI bridging phones and tablets. There was some info about that in the 4.0 keynote if you're interested.
Quote:
I don't think that is what will happen though. I think Amazon will shut out other Android players with a superior content ecosystem and then move upmarket to challenge Apple all on Google's research dime.

You buy an Amazon device if you want, primarily, to consume Amazon content. Or if basically any device will do, but Amazon's subsidization makes this device cheaper than anything else. The amount of people wanting to primarily consume Amazon content is much smaller than the amount of people wanting to do everything else that can be done on tablets. Amazon can't successfully stretch to every direction and challenge Asus' Transformer, Samsung's inevitable stylus tablet, super-high res tablets, etc. At the low end they may end up being challenged by equally cheap no-name tablets which cut costs by not doing any SW customization *and* get a selling point by staying religiously at the newest vanilla Android version. Being limited to Amazon's apps and shut out of the greater Android ecosystem seems like a terrible idea for a productivity user.
Quote:
At around the same time, Microsoft's Windows 8 Metro will attack from the top end.

That will leave HTC, Samsung, Toshiba, Asus, Motorola, and Acer left standing but fighting for scraps.

Huh? Those are hardware companies and many of them will just as gladly make their profits off Win8 tablets. In fact they already offer some Win7 tablets, Win8 tablets will be an incredible relief in comparison. Motorola Mobility was just bought by Google, so whatever they come up with, it seems more than likely it will run Android.
Reply
Reply
post #89 of 104
12/16/11 at 2:57pm
For every Kindle Fire sold instead of an iPad, Santa Claus kills and eats a kitten.

"Can't innovate anymore my ass!" -- Phil Schiller

Reply

"Can't innovate anymore my ass!" -- Phil Schiller

Reply
post #90 of 104
12/16/11 at 4:01pm
  • hmm
  • Keylogger
Quote:
Originally Posted by esummers View Post

I guess if we are calling the Kindle FIre a tablet, we might as well call the iPhone and iPod Touch tablets too. The Kindle Fire is just an oversized non-tablet Android device right? It isn't running Ice Cream Sandwich after all. It is just running the small form factor operating system.

Arguing semantics on this stuff is pointless. Recall how people on here always become irritated with the discussion of whether or not the ipad should be considered in PC sales?

Quote:
Originally Posted by herbapou View Post

Since Amazon is selling just over 1 million per week in the US alone, when they go internationnal they will probably sell more Kindle than Apple is selling ipads.

But I just dont get there business model: folks are buying it because its very cheap and I am not sure they are the kind of people who will spend a lot in the ecosystem. Apple has a client base that spends a lot, on top of this Apple is taking a 30% cut and Itunes sales only returns about 8 billions per year out of 100+ billions in revenu.

The Amazon stock is trading at 100 P/E. Do not touch that thing, its going to crash at some point just like netflix.

One thing is sure, people dont want to pay prices that are almost the same of the ipad for an android tablet. On the other hand, there is an hunger for cheap tablets sold buy "known" manufacturers.


You're over thinking this. Amazon would have run the numbers before making this thing. The actual market for tablet devices is in its infancy anyway. They've been around in some form or another for years, but the hardware is just starting to reach a point where they can make one that doesn't feel like a huge compromise over another form factor in every possible way.


Quote:
Originally Posted by pridon View Post

Amazon has to pay a margin to the retailers.. I think I read that KF is available in 16,000 points of sale. I would expect at least a $50 mark up on those, so Amazon would only net $150. It also has to absorb the negatvie impact of at least 10% return rate that some have forecast.

Also Amazon must absorb at least $10-15 in free shipping.

Will the Q1 Market share iPad market share exceed 100% when KF returns exceed the Q1 KF sales?

Unless you're referring to Amazon Prime I think your shipping numbers are a little high. High volume retailers do not pay very much for shipping compared to individuals, and brown boxes + bubble wrap aren't terribly expensive.
Reply
Reply
post #91 of 104
12/16/11 at 5:18pm
Apple got consumers stuck on their ecosystem with the iPod by making it an easy habit to buy. This was true despite the fact that other sellers of similar content, namely Amazon, had cheaper prices for music.

Amazon is trying to do the same with their ecosystem. Once enough consumers have the Fire in their hands, it will be easy, some say too easy, to buy stuff from their device. Once people get used to buying and see that it is easy, they will come back over and over. That is how Apple took over the world. It just might work for Amazon.

Regarding profit margins, we all know that there is no profit from selling the Fire hardware. Any profit will come from the other stuff they sell. We all know from the financial statements that Amazon's profit margin is nowhere near Apple's. Amazon's business is better expressed as low margin, high volume-just like a supermarket. They don't make a lot off of any one particular item, but add all of the sales together and they will make a decent buck.
Reply
Reply
post #92 of 104
12/16/11 at 6:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nairb View Post

There are more recent figures on Fire costs which is estimated to be around $200 per device to make. So they are probably losing $1 per device. Amazon only need to sell three songs or half a book to make that up.

But you are right about Fire not being real android. I think it should be classed as a breakaway and figures kept seperately for both OSes.

Excuse me. It costs far more than that. Those estimates are just for the hardware costs. They don't include sales and marketing expenses, packaging, warehousing, distribution, shipping, engineering, software development and maintenance, warranty, cost of capital, returns, customer service or any other overhead and administration costs.
Reply
Reply
post #93 of 104
12/16/11 at 6:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetz View Post

Are you Amazon's accountant or financial analyst? I'm curious why anybody should believe your assertions.

Believe it or not, Amazon probably has at least a few competent folks who have worked out a business model for the Kindle Fire. Companies don't just invest millions (or billions) on a whim.

Why don't you tell that to RIM.

Amazon had also been bragging they sold tons to Kindle and yet have no guts to tell the quantity. And I also believe their shareholders have no guts to hear the truth too otherwise they would ask for the numbers.

Until the day Amazon tell the truth they are like ENRON which tells the world they are making millions and yet no one question how they made the millions.

Amazon is just bull shitting with the help of analysts and research company like IDC which is just guessing the numbers and one question I would like to throw where are their sources which help them to derive the numbers.
Reply
Reply
post #94 of 104
12/16/11 at 6:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FreeRange View Post

Excuse me. It costs far more than that. Those estimates are just for the hardware costs. They don't include sales and marketing expenses, warehousing, distribution, shipping, development, warranty, cost of capital, returns, customer service or any other overhead and administration costs.

Some very recent BOM estimates have pegged the Fire's build costs at $143. How can you claim for a fact that the Fire costs much more than $200 to build. It might be a really good guess, but it's still your guess.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant that as your opinion rather than intending it to be taken as proof positive of what Amazon pays for a Kindle Fire.

melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

Reply

melior diabolus quem scies

"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012

Reply
post #95 of 104
12/16/11 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slapppy View Post

Never mentioning the glaring inadequacies of the Kindle Fire and the real reason its sold at a loss.

What about the simple fact that the reason that the iPad is going down in percent is because the total number of owners has gone up, not that the iPad sales have gone down. Not the whole ' the iPad is losing sales to the kindle fire' that some articles are trying to suggest.
Reply
Reply
post #96 of 104
12/16/11 at 8:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTac View Post

My wife works in education as an instructional coach (helping teachers be better is the simplest way to describe her job). The district is considering buying them iPads. My wife says that the iPad is overkill for their needs.

Which begs the question, what are the needs that need to be addressed.
Reply
Reply
post #97 of 104
12/16/11 at 8:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MobiusStrip View Post

This is what happens when you take a handheld Unix computer

Apple has never even hinted that the iPad or even iPhone are computers. So no one is expecting anything near that kind of power etc.

Quote:
Apple doesn't learn. They witnessed the demise of DRM, but learned nothing from it.

Guess you missed the part that a major reason for no DRM on music is that Apple demanded it from the labels. The labels didn't want to remove it but they also wanted to get out of the contracts they signed that let Apple pick the prices. So Apple agreed to let them have the pricing control if DRM was removed.

Quote:
if you keep pursuing anti-customer

Customer being defined as 'the way I want you do to things'

Quote:
Apple has always stuck its head
in the sand and pretended not to know what it needs to do to compete. Well, it's time to pull your head out of your ass, Apple.

Again, 'what it needs to do to compete' really means "what I want them to do". Which isn't going to happen simply because you want it. Apple has been on their own game plan for ages and the stock value etc shows that the majority is fine with what they are doing.
Reply
Reply
post #98 of 104
12/16/11 at 8:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tubbytee View Post

it will be interesting to see what the numbers for kindle will look like then. and please stop calling it a tablet. an archos media player has more functionality.

I agree. I'm surprised Archos and Creative Labs haven't figured out that they can slap a touch screen on their media players and call them "tablets" too.

"Can't innovate anymore my ass!" -- Phil Schiller

Reply

"Can't innovate anymore my ass!" -- Phil Schiller

Reply
post #99 of 104
12/17/11 at 12:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

Great analysis...

Except for 2 minor points:

1) The Fire and Nook are not tablets.

2) They do not run Android.


The Fire runs Android 2.3.4 with non-Google mobile services.
Reply
Reply
post #100 of 104
12/17/11 at 3:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bongo View Post

The Fire runs Android 2.3.4 with non-Google mobile services.

What other Android devices run the OS as delivered on the Fire? And, why would they?
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
Reply
post #101 of 104
12/17/11 at 6:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

What other Android devices run the OS as delivered on the Fire? And, why would they?

It really doesn't matter, as long as most Android distros can run the same unmodified apps.
Reply
Reply
post #102 of 104
12/18/11 at 7:00pm
Okay. I'll start over. The school district is looking for a different way for all of the instructional coaches to communicate with each other. Presently they either use their district provided laptops or their personal phones.

We are talking about email, sharing documents, lesson plans, grant proposals, etc.

We aren't talking educating students.
We aren't talking about teaching teachers
We aren't talking about replacing the laptops.

We are talking about a lightweight, portable, uniform way for the small number of instructional coaches to share notes.

My wife pointed out that some of the other tablets had USB ports and my wife finds flash drives useful. My wife has learned to back up everything. Not every school district has the latest and greatest IT support and equipment.

Is an iPad really necessary for what I have listed above?

My wife embraces new technology. She loves her iPhone. Uses it all the time. But she also understands trying to find a good balance between educating children and making the districts money (the tax payers money) be used in the best way.

But don't worry. She got voted down and all the coaches will get iPads. But one wonders if the money for these iPads might have been of more benefit in the classrooms helping students learn.
Reply
Reply
post #103 of 104
12/19/11 at 6:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gon View Post

They got started already with Android 4.0 UI bridging phones and tablets. There was some info about that in the 4.0 keynote if you're interested.
You buy an Amazon device if you want, primarily, to consume Amazon content. Or if basically any device will do, but Amazon's subsidization makes this device cheaper than anything else. The amount of people wanting to primarily consume Amazon content is much smaller than the amount of people wanting to do everything else that can be done on tablets. Amazon can't successfully stretch to every direction and challenge Asus' Transformer, Samsung's inevitable stylus tablet, super-high res tablets, etc. At the low end they may end up being challenged by equally cheap no-name tablets which cut costs by not doing any SW customization *and* get a selling point by staying religiously at the newest vanilla Android version. Being limited to Amazon's apps and shut out of the greater Android ecosystem seems like a terrible idea for a productivity user.
Huh? Those are hardware companies and many of them will just as gladly make their profits off Win8 tablets. In fact they already offer some Win7 tablets, Win8 tablets will be an incredible relief in comparison. Motorola Mobility was just bought by Google, so whatever they come up with, it seems more than likely it will run Android.

I'm not disputing any of this. Every one of these competitors has different sources of revenue to keep them in the fight should they choose to pursue it. Amazon can motor along and never have to move upmarket, but I think they will. The problem with their current offering is storage space will limit how much people will be able to buy and store on their device thereby limiting the very sales that are meant to support the low-to-no margin Kindle Fire.

But if Amazon gets it right they will be swiping consumer share from both Android and iOS. In the end Android will fall under the assault of Windows as Microsoft buys share back as it prepares to take on Apple in this space. The only breathing space Google has is that Microsoft may not quickly port everything over to ARM processors.

I just don't think OEMs will retain interest in Android if that happens except as a bludgeon to get lower license rates from Microsoft.
Reply
Reply
post #104 of 104
12/20/11 at 9:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTac View Post

Okay. I'll start over. The school district is looking for a different way for all of the instructional coaches to communicate with each other. Presently they either use their district provided laptops or their personal phones.

We are talking about email, sharing documents, lesson plans, grant proposals, etc.

We aren't talking educating students.
We aren't talking about teaching teachers
We aren't talking about replacing the laptops.

We are talking about a lightweight, portable, uniform way for the small number of instructional coaches to share notes.

My wife pointed out that some of the other tablets had USB ports and my wife finds flash drives useful. My wife has learned to back up everything. Not every school district has the latest and greatest IT support and equipment.

Is an iPad really necessary for what I have listed above?

My wife embraces new technology. She loves her iPhone. Uses it all the time. But she also understands trying to find a good balance between educating children and making the districts money (the tax payers money) be used in the best way.

But don't worry. She got voted down and all the coaches will get iPads. But one wonders if the money for these iPads might have been of more benefit in the classrooms helping students learn.

If you are talking about driving a highly collaborative system then the iPad suits that very well indeed. Moreover it gives the instructional coaches the ability to expand how they use the device instead of just having what they need at the moment. Otherwise they all would still be using pagers, right?

As a former technical advisor to my children's school system, your wife's attitude is pretty much par for the course - but having to use flash drives which can be lost, lifted, or misplaced seems a little silly. Better tools don't necessarily make for better coaches, but better coaches know how to leverage better tools. And one wonders, as long as we are using third person in our ponderings (grin), if the money allocated for the devices came out of the funding for the schools or funding for technology, or a grant to support the instructional coaches - none of which would have been re-allocated for classroom benefit regardless, so the point is rather moot I think.

And to be sure I'm not being critical of your wife's thought process, just the logic you use in supporting it. If the school system cannot afford to support the instructional coaches to the point that any significant money spent on them is a diversion of classroom funding - that simply is wrong.

Now just because you currently do not "teach teachers" from the devices they have, doesn't mean the flexibility and power of the platform cannot be utilitized to convenience the coaches, or even expand their roles and capacity to deliver more, more conveniently than before. But that depends on the whether the coaches are oriented towards understanding and leveraging those resources, or no. Perhaps they need better coaches instead of better devices?
If you are going to insist on being an ass, at least demonstrate the intelligence to be a smart one
Reply
If you are going to insist on being an ass, at least demonstrate the intelligence to be a smart one
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: iPad
AppleInsider › Forums › Mobile › iPad › IDC: Kindle Fire to push iPad below 60% market share in Q4