Kindle Fire: 6 million units sold at the end of 2011?

While no official figures have been published (Amazon doesn’t release these), estimations about the sales figures of the Kindle Fire are currently circulating. The figures being looked at are for the last quarter of 2011.

Tim Cook, CEO at Apple, may be proclaiming that sales of the Kindle Fire tablet have had no impact on the iPad tablet, but Amazon’s release has certainly been well received.

Amazon is maintaining their well held tradition of not publishing official results, although the company is happy enough pronouncing that the Kindle family is in high demand with 1 million different family members of their range being shipped each week during December 2011.


Immediate success
While the tablet has only been available since November 2011 in a single market, North America, analysts believe that it is selling very well thanks to its aggressive pricing ($199), making Amazon customers loyal consumers.

Estimations being put forward are of between 4 and 5 million units being shipped in the last quarter of 2011. This is not enough to worry Apple (15.4 million iPad's shipped), but it is problematic for Android tablet manufacturers who are having difficulty in convincing consumers of their commercial viability.

Revising their figures thanks to new information, numerous analysts have increased their estimations of Kindle Fire sales to 5.5 million, or even 6 million units. Considering that it is a standalone Android tablet, this represents close to half of all Android sales made in the last quarter of 2011.

Unfortunately, this won’t be officially confirmed by Amazons management, at least directly.