Jordan Rohan of investment bank Stifel Niclaus just upped his estimate of how many Kindle Fires Amazon sold over the holiday season, from 5 million to 6 million. In a Sunday note to investors reported by AllThingsD, Rohan calls the Fire a "true tablet market contender."
If the 6 million number is true, it's pretty incredible considering the Fire was only released on Nov. 14, so it only had half the quarter, or about six weeks, to rack up all those sales. And although a 6 million figure is still just a fraction of iPad sales over the same period -- 15.4 million -- it's more than double the number of iPads sold in the first quarter it was ever available (3.2 million).
So far, all Amazon has said about Kindle sales is that the company sold "well over" 1 million Kindle products for each week in December, and that the Kindle Fire was the No. 1 best-selling product on the site as well as the most wished for and most gifted item. We should get more details when Amazon releases its quarterly earnings tomorrow, although Amazon has never blocked out sales figures for individual products in the Kindle line.
A strong showing for the Kindle Fire would offer further evidence that the tablet market is splitting into two, with the iPad dominating the high end and the Kindle Fire filling the void at the lower price points. At just $199, the Kindle Fire is a full $300 cheaper than the least-expensive iPad, and it's widely believed Amazon is either selling them at cost or at a loss in order to recruit more customers to its services like Amazon Prime and Cloud Drive.