Kindle Fire shipments drop sharply as Apple's iPad takes 68% tablet share

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  • Reply 21 of 106
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    This goes back to the previous thread of why Target discontinued all Amazon product sales. It's pretty obvious that one major reason is because they weren't selling enough to pay for the costs of having them on the floor.

    I think it's very likely that the vast majority of buyers for these things are buying them directly from Amazon's website, leaving few to be sold anywhere else. If we can believe IDG's numbers for once, sales of 750,000 would then mean that retailers would possibly be selling no more than a few tens of thousands all together.

    This is a reminder of what happened to Hp's Touchpad, where they sold only about 25,000 of the almost one million they produced before dropping the price drastically. Best Buy wanted to return the rest in stock. I imagine that Target is doing the same thing with the Amazon Kindle's and Fire.

    No conspiracy between Apple and Target is required to explain this.
  • Reply 22 of 106

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by applematty View Post


    The race of the bottom feeders is not a bad race to be in.. Ever heard of Wal Mart?



     


     


     


    Is't that where lots of people go to buy Apple stuff?

  • Reply 23 of 106
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    applematty wrote: »
    The race of the bottom feeders is not a bad race to be in.. Ever heard of Wal Mart?

    Target and Walmart are both threatened by Amazon's ability to take their customers out of their stores with lightning fast shipping and world class customer service. The Kindle Fire is just a vehicle to have more people identify with an already impressive brand. Furthermore, Amazon doesn't release sales figures for their Kindles, so this whole story is just speculation..(from a website called Appleinsider, no less) Consider the source. Amazon is threatening Apple too because of their multifaceted capacities to serve not only the demand for digital content, but also the kitchen sink. 

    Perhaps you've missed the entire thing that happening here? This is not an Appleinsider story. It's the quarterly report from IDC. This story is being reported elsewhere.
  • Reply 24 of 106


    What a totally unbiased article! NOT! When will Apple fans get over this jealousy of the Kfire? LOL!

  • Reply 25 of 106
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member


    Is't that where lots of people go to buy Apple stuff?

    It's amusing to note that Amazon is also where a lot of Apple buyers go to buy their stuff, as Apple products are always at the top of, or very near the top of the Amazon best seller lists in any category where Apple makes a product that Amazon sells.
  • Reply 26 of 106
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nagromme View Post


    Shipped vs sold... I think the iPad’s doing even better than these numbers make it sound.


     


    (And then there are return rates. I wonder if Target is dropping the Fire because of high return rates?)



     


    Can't return what wasn't bought. According to Target folks were coming in, checking out the Kindle and then ordering from Amazon cause it was cheaper. And Amazon has been encouraging that behavior. 


     


    And going with that is that typically channel sales are final on electronics. So Target can't return what customers don't buy. So they are cutting their losses now. 


     


    Combine this with perhaps better than average returns by what few customers they had in exchange for something else and it's easy to see why Target doesn't want the Kindle in their stores. Compared to the iPad which is often only returned because someone wants a different storage size or wants the 4g etc. 

  • Reply 27 of 106
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    What a totally unbiased article! NOT! When will Apple fans get over this jealousy of the Kfire? LOL!

    Well, this is the second funny troll post of the thread! Apparently, trolls have a third grade reading level, as they can't seem to understand where the information for this article came from.
  • Reply 28 of 106
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post

    Well, this is the second funny troll post of the thread! Apparently, trolls have a third grade reading level, as they can't seem to understand where the information for this article came from.


     


    One post; he obviously created the account just to troll.

  • Reply 29 of 106
    DaekwanDaekwan Posts: 175member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


     


    DaHarder flat out wanted a Kindle Fire.



     


    He's also the only person in the world that personally owns a 100 cellphones & 40 tablets.  Any surprise he wanted one.  


     


    To each their own & what a man does with his hard owned money is his business.. but I've never understood it.  I guess he wants to be his own tech-blog.

  • Reply 30 of 106
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member


    so that isights.org article  story was wrong? who whudda thunk.

  • Reply 31 of 106
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Daekwan View Post


    Cant believe this is even a surprise.  I know individual experience is never a true indicator of market demand.. but I've literally NEVER heard someone say that they flatout wanted a Kindle Fire. 



     


    I wanted one and I bought a refurb for $139 w/free shipping.  Amazon Video and NetFlix is great for the kids.  I just have to disable purchases on it before I hand it to them.


     


    I've seen lots of kids with their mom's Kindle. 

  • Reply 32 of 106
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nht View Post

    I've seen lots of kids with their mom's Kindle. 


     


    No, you're wrong. Parents don't give their kids their devices. They also don't give them their passwords. You don't have to disable purchases at all. Let them buy what they want with your device and then sue Amazon for letting them do it.

  • Reply 33 of 106
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GTR View Post



    I have a different take on this, something which I've suspected from the start.

    Anybody can fool a buyer with slick marketing and a rubbish product. However, once bitten, consumers generally don't make that mistake again.

    I expect to see something similar happen with Android phones in the next year or so as well as technical issues, bad customer service, lack of updates, and scarcity of quality apps make their mark on all the suckers buying them now.

    And I'd love to know the return rates on Android devices too...


     


    Rapid sales gains in phones and tablets have been a matter of signing up new adopters, to date.  That means most of the people buying these devices are likely to be at least somewhat impressed by them, in that they've never owned anything similar.


     


    For phones, that means that even a worse than average Android handset is going to please, at first, if it can successfully get online, handle email, surf, text and playback media.  Ditto tablets, for now. But we're rapidly running out of those customers, at least in the US and Europe.  Smartphone adoption numbers will probably start to slow within a year or so as we reach something like 75% ownership, with the last 25% representing the kind of people that will be very slow to adopt new tech, if they ever do.  Even today there are plenty of people with dialup internet (if any), no cable, CRT TVs (if any) etc.  Tablets are still on the steep ramp-up part of the curve, but they're likely to start to saturate at lower total number than smartphones, since they lack the almost necessary utility of a phone.


     


    So very soon now, if not already, most smartphone buyers in the US and Europe (with other countries shortly to follow in order of affluence/demographics) will be aware of the limitations of their chosen platform and be a little more informed when it comes time to re-up.  We already know that Apple has astronomically high customer satisfaction levels; it seems very unlikely that any significant numbers of the millions of customers that Apple is adding will be inclined to abandon the iPhone (or iPad down the road).  I don't think the same can be said of Android, although obviously they don't have a mass defection problem on the order of Symbian or RIM.  


     


    Tablets will take a little while yet to reach the same levels of "informed" buyers, but it's happening even faster than smartphones did.  I'll be very interested to see how sales numbers play out over the next few years.  I think that will give us a more accurate representation of what people like, rather than what people guessed at or were told.

  • Reply 34 of 106
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    Yeah, Kindle did well for Xmas, since it's appealing as a gift (cheap, but a recognizable brand). But people who want a tablet for themselves, want - and are prepared to pay for - an iPad. Amazon may pull it off again this Xmas, with a larger screen model, but I don't think it'll have the same effect and it'll be splitting the "non-iPad" market with google this time. Apple with dominate while cheap android tablets fight each other for table scraps.

    In other words, Kindle Fire is the new fruitcake.
  • Reply 35 of 106
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nagromme View Post


    Shipped vs sold... I think the iPad’s doing even better than these numbers make it sound.




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


    Estimates of tablet market share vary so wildly, (and vary even day to day from the same sources), that it's really not worth reporting these stories except as "guestimates." 



     


    It's much like the 'smartphone' estimates. Two different analysts came up with approximately the same number for Samsung's total phone shipments, but varied dramatically on their estimates of Samsung smartphone shipments. Apparently, one included a wider range of phones than the other.




    Same thing is presumably happening in tablets. I would argue that the original Kindle was not a tablet computer, yet some of the analysts seem to be including it. Furthermore, I would suggest that comparing a 5" Dell Streak to a 10" iPad is a useless comparison. At the high end where they compete, Apple has an overwhelming market share. I doubt if Apple cares very much about people who are buying $79 Kindles as gifts.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MacBook Pro View Post


     


     


    Galaxy Tab return rate as high as 16%, researcher says


     


    Some speculate many returns are due to Froyo's inability to fully run Android apps on 7-inch screen


     



    February 1, 2011 05:47 PM ET


     


     


     


     


     


     


    Computerworld - Since Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet debuted in the U.S. in November, return rates have been as high as 16%, said ITG Investment Research, which tracked sales at nearly 6,000 wireless stores.



     


    Don't say that too loud. Gatorguy and zzzz will go into a coma.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nht View Post


     


    I wanted one and I bought a refurb for $139 w/free shipping.  Amazon Video and NetFlix is great for the kids.  I just have to disable purchases on it before I hand it to them.


     


    I've seen lots of kids with their mom's Kindle. 



     


    The Kindle products are great products. I know a couple of people who own them simply as e-readers. If that's what you're looking for, they're hard to beat, especially the e-ink models. But if you're looking for a tablet, even the high end Fire leaves a lot to be desired.

  • Reply 36 of 106
    drblankdrblank Posts: 3,385member


    Kindle Schmindle.    It is an inexpensive e-reader and that's about it.  It does have a decent screen to read books and magazines outside, but that's about it.


     


    I am not surprised the Kindle isn't selling very well anymore.  Computer products that are made and designed by companies that don't really specialize in these types of products have a difficult time being taken seriously for the long term.  They might sell OK at first, but over the long term, they don't.  I am actually surprised it sold as well as it did.


     


    It reminds me of Shaper Image and Brookstone private label products.  They have limited appeal.


     


    Actually, IMO, I don't take computer, smartphone, tablet companies that don't design their own OS that has a track record.  Because the company that makes the hardware is also responsible for supporting the Operating System and if they didn't develop the OS, then the customer service and support levels most likely won't be very good.  I mean, even most of these Windows computer mfg don't even design their own motherboards as they just buy Intel or some other mfg motherboard and that's basically the main guts of the system.


     


    The only thing that HP, IBM, Sun that I will take on any serious levels are their high end Unix based servers, because at least they develop a large portion of the OS, it is just boils down to which one makes the best hardware/software combination.  But then again, I don't buy high end Unix servers for my home.


     


    Apple just needs to get and retain really good talent for development of their products and always strive for improvement to always provide the best products they can.  Unfortunately, there are too many computer geeks that think they are an expert and choose to assemble their own systems together when they usually spend more time tinkering with or playing games with their computer rather than using it for serious applications.   They usually end up spending more time (which they don't calculate that into $$s they need to add to the price of the computer). 

  • Reply 37 of 106
    mrstepmrstep Posts: 513member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    I thought this would happen. Kindles are gift items. I bet that's why Amazon doesn't report sales. They only sell in significant numbers during the holidays. They're also essentially only good as e-readers, a market that I think is fast approaching saturation.



     


    Good being relative even in that context - if I want to read on an LCD, I'd be crazy to do it on something less than the iPad Retina display. If I want to read on just an e-reader, I'd go to the e-ink models... Which kind of leaves the Kindle Fire / Nook Color class device as odd-man-out.


     


    (I understand that Apple is competing with the lower price tablets by keeping the iPad2 in play, but 4x the screen for an extra $99 (or 25% for the base model) is crazy to pass up. IMHO and all that, but I'd rather I or my kids read on the screen that isn't going to leave me wishing I'd now skimped.)

  • Reply 38 of 106
  • Reply 39 of 106
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member


    Whaa?? I thought it was a copy.

     

  • Reply 40 of 106
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member


    As soon as I saw that Amazon's profit margin was up in the latest quarter I started wondering if Fire sales had collapsed. [edit for clarification-- because the Fire is not profitable, lower sales mean higher profit margins, at least in the short term]


     


    Makes me think of the SNL jab against Fire --- popular among parents who always buy the wrong thing. 

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