That's based on shipments, not sales. All those figures tell us it that there are a lot more Android tablets being manufactured than last year, which we knew.
No, technically it's based on sales (sell-in) to the only channels they have, resellers. Unlike Apple none of them generally sell direct to a consumer, so it's less clear how many are on store shelves and how many already left the store with a new owner. Store inventory figures would be needed to get a better view of consumer purchases I think. Point taken tho. Tough to do a direct comparison.
On a somewhat related note, the ASUS Transformer is reportedly now the second best selling tablet (iPad is naturally first). Only 400K units per month so far, but hey, it's a start.
No, technically it's based on sales (sell-in) to the only channels they have, resellers. Unlike Apple none of them generally sell direct to a consumer, so it's less clear how many are on store shelves and how many already left the store with a new owner. Store inventory figures would be needed to get a better view of consumer purchases I think. Point taken tho. Tough to do a direct comparison.
"Manufactured" and "sell in" are basically synonymous, since it's unlikely that many tablets are being made just to be left to sit in factories.
But the main point is the way the report confuses "market share" with "shipped", since they are clearly all but unrelated. If they weren't, anyone could claim "market share" just by stuffing the channel with as many tablets as they could make, without having to actually sell a single one.
Google reports under 1% Honeycomb devices accessing the Android Market out of a total 135 million Android device activations, which comes out to something like 1.2 million devices running what is ostensibly the new default tablet OS. Given those numbers, I think it's a pretty safe bet that 30% for Android tablet "market share" is grossly inflated. Even assuming as many tablets running something prior to Honeycomb sold to date (which is generous, since any significant Android tablet sales are presumably pretty recent, and likely to be based on Honeycomb models) you still only get a few million total, against Apple's near 30 million iPads sold. Which puts us back at over 90% actual market share for the iPad.
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On a somewhat related note, the ASUS Transformer is reportedly now the second best selling tablet (iPad is naturally first). Only 400K units per month so far, but hey, it's a start.
400K sold or shipped? As per above, it makes quite a bit of difference.
EDIT: never mind, it's shipped. And the linked article makes exactly the same mistake, equating shipped with "sales." We have absolutely no way of knowing how many of those shipped Transformers are actually being sold, but my bet is "somewhat fewer than all of them." Apple, on the other hand, has publicly declared that they are selling every iPad they can make and have only recently even gotten a handle on "the mother of all backlogs."
. . . the report confuses "market share" with "shipped", since they are clearly all but unrelated. If they weren't, anyone could claim "market share" just by stuffing the channel with as many tablets as they could make, without having to actually sell a single one. . .
. . . Given those numbers, I think it's a pretty safe bet that 30% for Android tablet "market share" is grossly inflated. Even assuming as many tablets running something prior to Honeycomb sold to date (which is generous, since any significant Android tablet sales are presumably pretty recent, and likely to be based on Honeycomb models) you still only get a few million total, against Apple's near 30 million iPads sold. Which puts us back at over 90% actual market share for the iPad.
We have absolutely no way of knowing how many of those shipped Transformers are actually being sold, but my bet is "somewhat fewer than all of them." Apple, on the other hand, has publicly declared that they are selling every iPad they can make and have only recently even gotten a handle on "the mother of all backlogs."
Good reasoning Addabox, and in general I agree with you that it's tough to directly compare sales to resellers and sales to consumers. But whether it's an iPad or a Transformer sitting on a shelf at Best Buy, it was still a sale counted by each. Even Walmart has iPad's sitting on a shelf unsold to a consumer. So some percentage of iPad sales figures are also coming from "sell-in". It's not simply a case of shipped tho. Money actually changes hands, thus counted as a sale, albeit to a reseller.
As regards the Transformer specifically, they've also been selling them as fast as they can produce them. Until the past few weeks they were nearly impossible to find, selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. I think that one really is a success story, tho perhaps a rarity so far for iPad competitors.
Good reasoning Addabox, and in general I agree with you that it's tough to directly compare sales to resellers and sales to consumers. But whether it's an iPad or a Transformer sitting on a shelf at Best Buy, it was still a sale counted by each. Even Walmart has iPad's sitting on a shelf unsold to a consumer. So some percentage of iPad sales figures are also coming from "sell-in". It's not simply a case of shipped tho. Money actually changes hands, thus counted as a sale, albeit to a reseller.
I think it's more sensible to count that as a "provisional sale", since if it doesn't eventually sell to the consumer it gets returned to the manufacturer. Although there may be a few iPads sitting on shelves for a day or two, in general iPads have been hard to come buy and it's unlikely that any significant fraction of Apple's numbers involve unsold retailer inventory.
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As regards the Transformer specifically, they've also been selling them as fast as they can produce them. Until the past few weeks they were nearly impossible to find, selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. I think that one really is a success story, tho perhaps a rarity so far for iPad competitors.
I'll have to wait until the smoke clears on that one. Android tablet manufacturers seem to be all too willing to play numbers games to create an impression of popularity where none exists. For instance, it's entirely possible that the Transformer's rapid sellouts had more to do with very limited supply than very high demand.
If someone can provide me with reliable figures for Android tablets actually sold to consumers I'd be happy to give credit where credit is due if that is appropriate; until then the very current figures I've cited for Honeycomb activations seem like the most pertinent stats.
I think it's more sensible to count that as a "provisional sale", since if it doesn't eventually sell to the consumer it gets returned to the manufacturer.
Do they get returned to the manufacturer? I'd be pretty surprised. I've never seen anything like that mentioned. "Sell-in" for the book publisher's is different from typical retailer's AFAIK. I suspect a sale is a sale to Best Buy, etc. and they don't take 'em back later if the reseller over-estimates his market.
More specific info from Google based on screen size. They show .9% of devices accessing the Android Market in the last 7 days to be 7" and up (extra large).
So the "maybe lots of tablets aren't running Honeycomb" idea doesn't seem to be true. I suppose we could still imagine that there are lots of tablets that infrequently access the market, but there's no reason to think that would be any more true of tablets than any other Android device, and the pie chart is showing total percentages among all devices. That is, its just as likely that handsets would be missed by this metric as tablets so the percentages are probably roughly accurate.
If actual Android tablet sales are much higher than the .9% it doesn't look like it would be by much (or could even be lower) which makes the 1.2 million figure pretty plausible. It also makes talk of 30% Android tablet "market share" absolute nonsense.
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That's based on shipments, not sales. All those figures tell us it that there are a lot more Android tablets being manufactured than last year, which we knew.
No, technically it's based on sales (sell-in) to the only channels they have, resellers. Unlike Apple none of them generally sell direct to a consumer, so it's less clear how many are on store shelves and how many already left the store with a new owner. Store inventory figures would be needed to get a better view of consumer purchases I think. Point taken tho.
On a somewhat related note, the ASUS Transformer is reportedly now the second best selling tablet (iPad is naturally first). Only 400K units per month so far, but hey, it's a start.
No, technically it's based on sales (sell-in) to the only channels they have, resellers. Unlike Apple none of them generally sell direct to a consumer, so it's less clear how many are on store shelves and how many already left the store with a new owner. Store inventory figures would be needed to get a better view of consumer purchases I think. Point taken tho.
"Manufactured" and "sell in" are basically synonymous, since it's unlikely that many tablets are being made just to be left to sit in factories.
But the main point is the way the report confuses "market share" with "shipped", since they are clearly all but unrelated. If they weren't, anyone could claim "market share" just by stuffing the channel with as many tablets as they could make, without having to actually sell a single one.
Google reports under 1% Honeycomb devices accessing the Android Market out of a total 135 million Android device activations, which comes out to something like 1.2 million devices running what is ostensibly the new default tablet OS. Given those numbers, I think it's a pretty safe bet that 30% for Android tablet "market share" is grossly inflated. Even assuming as many tablets running something prior to Honeycomb sold to date (which is generous, since any significant Android tablet sales are presumably pretty recent, and likely to be based on Honeycomb models) you still only get a few million total, against Apple's near 30 million iPads sold. Which puts us back at over 90% actual market share for the iPad.
On a somewhat related note, the ASUS Transformer is reportedly now the second best selling tablet (iPad is naturally first). Only 400K units per month so far, but hey, it's a start.
400K sold or shipped? As per above, it makes quite a bit of difference.
EDIT: never mind, it's shipped. And the linked article makes exactly the same mistake, equating shipped with "sales." We have absolutely no way of knowing how many of those shipped Transformers are actually being sold, but my bet is "somewhat fewer than all of them." Apple, on the other hand, has publicly declared that they are selling every iPad they can make and have only recently even gotten a handle on "the mother of all backlogs."
. . . the report confuses "market share" with "shipped", since they are clearly all but unrelated. If they weren't, anyone could claim "market share" just by stuffing the channel with as many tablets as they could make, without having to actually sell a single one. . .
. . . Given those numbers, I think it's a pretty safe bet that 30% for Android tablet "market share" is grossly inflated. Even assuming as many tablets running something prior to Honeycomb sold to date (which is generous, since any significant Android tablet sales are presumably pretty recent, and likely to be based on Honeycomb models) you still only get a few million total, against Apple's near 30 million iPads sold. Which puts us back at over 90% actual market share for the iPad.
We have absolutely no way of knowing how many of those shipped Transformers are actually being sold, but my bet is "somewhat fewer than all of them." Apple, on the other hand, has publicly declared that they are selling every iPad they can make and have only recently even gotten a handle on "the mother of all backlogs."
Good reasoning Addabox, and in general I agree with you that it's tough to directly compare sales to resellers and sales to consumers. But whether it's an iPad or a Transformer sitting on a shelf at Best Buy, it was still a sale counted by each. Even Walmart has iPad's sitting on a shelf unsold to a consumer. So some percentage of iPad sales figures are also coming from "sell-in". It's not simply a case of shipped tho. Money actually changes hands, thus counted as a sale, albeit to a reseller.
As regards the Transformer specifically, they've also been selling them as fast as they can produce them. Until the past few weeks they were nearly impossible to find, selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. I think that one really is a success story, tho perhaps a rarity so far for iPad competitors.
Good reasoning Addabox, and in general I agree with you that it's tough to directly compare sales to resellers and sales to consumers. But whether it's an iPad or a Transformer sitting on a shelf at Best Buy, it was still a sale counted by each. Even Walmart has iPad's sitting on a shelf unsold to a consumer. So some percentage of iPad sales figures are also coming from "sell-in". It's not simply a case of shipped tho. Money actually changes hands, thus counted as a sale, albeit to a reseller.
I think it's more sensible to count that as a "provisional sale", since if it doesn't eventually sell to the consumer it gets returned to the manufacturer. Although there may be a few iPads sitting on shelves for a day or two, in general iPads have been hard to come buy and it's unlikely that any significant fraction of Apple's numbers involve unsold retailer inventory.
As regards the Transformer specifically, they've also been selling them as fast as they can produce them. Until the past few weeks they were nearly impossible to find, selling out as soon as they hit store shelves. I think that one really is a success story, tho perhaps a rarity so far for iPad competitors.
I'll have to wait until the smoke clears on that one. Android tablet manufacturers seem to be all too willing to play numbers games to create an impression of popularity where none exists. For instance, it's entirely possible that the Transformer's rapid sellouts had more to do with very limited supply than very high demand.
If someone can provide me with reliable figures for Android tablets actually sold to consumers I'd be happy to give credit where credit is due if that is appropriate; until then the very current figures I've cited for Honeycomb activations seem like the most pertinent stats.
I think it's more sensible to count that as a "provisional sale", since if it doesn't eventually sell to the consumer it gets returned to the manufacturer.
Do they get returned to the manufacturer? I'd be pretty surprised. I've never seen anything like that mentioned. "Sell-in" for the book publisher's is different from typical retailer's AFAIK. I suspect a sale is a sale to Best Buy, etc. and they don't take 'em back later if the reseller over-estimates his market.
So the "maybe lots of tablets aren't running Honeycomb" idea doesn't seem to be true. I suppose we could still imagine that there are lots of tablets that infrequently access the market, but there's no reason to think that would be any more true of tablets than any other Android device, and the pie chart is showing total percentages among all devices. That is, its just as likely that handsets would be missed by this metric as tablets so the percentages are probably roughly accurate.
If actual Android tablet sales are much higher than the .9% it doesn't look like it would be by much (or could even be lower) which makes the 1.2 million figure pretty plausible. It also makes talk of 30% Android tablet "market share" absolute nonsense.