Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune, “In a note to clients issued Monday, Hudson Square Research’s Daniel Ernst reported on the results of a pre-holiday scouting trip he took to retail stores in New York and Connecticut over the weekend… ‘While Amazon reported that the Kindle family of devices was selling more than 1M units per week, we continue to be surprised that the Kindle Fire is still in-stock (as opposed to sold-out).'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps consumers actually read the reviews?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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when i was at the apple store a few weeks ago they were stocked full of Mac’s, iphones and ipads. maybe i should take my MBP back?
Lol exactly.
The three local places near me that sell ipads had a bunch on the shelves.
I guess its just not popular anymore
I thought the same thing when I was at target…..But I looked closer and noticed that the iPads they had in stock were only the high end 64 GB versions. All the 16’s were out. Yet there we’re 16GB Fires available in the next case….
—“Yet there we’re 16GB Fires available in the next case….??”
I thought K-Fire only come in one size – 8GB?
They had 16gb wifis in black and white at 2 of the places I went.
I haven’t seen the walmart in town out of ipads for months.
The difference is, Apple actually posts the number of iPads sold when announcing the quarterly results. When someone suggests that the iPads have been a blockbuster, you don’t have to reach for your magic balls to spin out a number out of thin speculative air.
Not the same thing. None of the Mac models are newly launched and in their first holiday season.
The Kindle Fire is a new product, just introduced, and having its first Christmas. Such products, when they’re hot, are always hard to get. (Best example: Any new videogame console.) If it’s trivial to get your hands on a Fire this close to Christmas, it’s not as popular as is being reported.
——RM
Could it be…wet kindling?
I was in Best Buy last night and they had a complete rack of Kindles there. Same thing two days before that. The other areas were constantly being restocked. You can tell when merch is moving…
Open your eyes. Last night, I sat at Long Horns for 30 minutes before we got seated for dinner. There were dozens of iOS devices in use there. iPhones, iPod touch and iPads. ALL BUT 2 WERE APPLE DEVICES. The real world all around you will tell you the true story.
PS: The 2 adults that did not have Apple iOS devices were with their 2 teenage kids with 2 iOS devices.
The bloodbath is all around. Open your eyes.
its true. when I’m on the subway in NY. its all Ipods-iphones & ipads. every once in awhile you see something else
I see a ton of kindles and nooks on the subway – not as many iPads, but sh*ttons of iPhones. I don’t own a kindle, but it makes sense to have one for reading on the subway – if it gets dropped or stolen, you wouldn’t bum out half as much as you would your iPad. And they look a bit easier to hold on to. Not that I ever have any desire to actually own one, just sayin’.
Amazon said that they’re selling 1m KINDLES per week, not necessarily Kindle FIRES. They’re probably selling a ton of the B&W model and not moving many Fires.
When Amazon mentioned the million per week, they also mentioned that the Kindle Fire has been the best seller of the Kindles.
And without actual numbers to back any of their claims, we should believe them why?
you can be sure if they were selling 1M Fires per week, they would have said so, loudly.
which means, they ain’t.
and it could be their “best seller” with only 500k per week in sales.
Amazon, Samsung and others all play this same PR BS game: no honest numbers. and no one, including Apple, reports the number of returns.
There is NO penalty for telling outright “porkies” so why shouldn’t they? They may even generate another 2-dozen sales.
Amazon said they were “moving” not “selling”. It’s all bullshit marketing. Any company who refuses to release granular numbers can go fuck themselves because the reality is: there’s nothing to brag about. It’s just fluff.
I said this before: hype for the first month, then high returns and a drop in sales. A failure.
its only bragging if its not true
The first poster had it correct. There are plenty of iPads in stock. The question is baseless. Amazon indicated that they were going to make 5 million of these, if not more for the holidays. As far as I can tell, especially in Los Angeles, they are sold out at the local Best Buys I’ve been too.
I don’t see the Fire as a direct competitor to the iPad. If anything it is a starter system for those who were on the fence about getting a tablet in the first place. The Fire made it possible to go and JUST DO IT. If their needs exceed what the FIre will provide, then they will move over to the iPad so after.
Apple is killing it! And because of that sadly I don’t think Apple will need to reduce the iPad 3 to $399. I don’t think the prices will come down until there is some real competition out there. It might come from WebOS since that will be a TRUE OPEN SOURCE alternative, and currently the second most popular tablet interface. Those that were able to get the $99 TouchPad are probably ecstatic of the news of HP opening up that platform.
Frankly the only way anyone will be able to compete with the iPad and why the manufacturers don’t get it, is that the iPad isn’t tied to a carrier, thus no limit. Apple’s tightly and well organized ecosystem is something that the competitors just can’t get a grasp on. Even Google’s incomplete ideas are just a mess for the end user and frankly I don’t know anyone who really really loves Android (without being an extreme technogeek fanboy). Most users are just that…USERS! Not tech heads. They just want a nicely intergraded system. Apple provides that in SPADES! The others DON’T! It is that simple. You can invest with others, but what you have is an incomplete thought.
… selling more than 1M units per week
And customer returns = how many thousands a week? Which of course would explain why Amazon still have them in stock. Sell 2, get 1 back, put it back in stock, sell 2, get 1 back…
If anyone gets their hands on the customer return rate figures (after Christmas day disappointments of course) I believe Amazon is going to turn redder than Santa. 😆
Listen I love Apple but some of you guys have to know that other companies will do fine and sell a lot of product too. The Fire is doing great, will do great and Amazon WILL correct the problems. Apple products after all are NOT perfect out of the gate sometimes. So RELAX people!
I haven’t seen a Fire irl yet. I’m not sure how ‘great’ they’re really doing…
Amazon can’t hold a kindle to Apple’s iPad anyway