Amazon Fire Tablet Sales Underwhelming over Holidays; Amazon Disagrees

Amazon is a force to be reckoned with in the tablet industry, with some of the best-valued devices on the market coming from the online shopping company, but this past holiday season has shown some weakness in its hold on the budget tablet niche. Formerly the 3rd-highest in the area of units shipped and market share, Amazon and its Fire tablet dropped down to number 5 this year in Q4, following ASUS, Lenovo, Samsung, and Apple. The Fire went from shipping out 5.8 million units to only 1.7, which is a drop of almost 70%.

Why the huge drop? Well, everyone is experiencing a lower demand for tablets: Apple and Samsung both saw drops of just shy of 20%, and ASUS saw a drop of nearly 25%, but none of those examples even come close to the amount of lost market share Amazon experienced this year. ASUS’ losses can be attributed to a lack of a Nexus device made by the manufacturer this year, and Apple and Samsung didn’t break any new ground as far as tablet innovation goes in 2014 (both the iPad Air 2 and Galaxy Tab 4′s did not improve drastically over their predecessors), but why did Amazon’s improved Fire tablet do so poorly?

Amazon claims that the 6″ tablet wasn’t included in the data, which made the numbers seem artificially low, however, even if the 6″ tablet is included with its 1.2 million units sold, there would still be a 50% drop in units shipped—still more than double ASUS’ hard losses. Another possible explanation could be the free tablet giveaways we’ve seen carriers run this past year, offering free Samsung tablets or Apple tablets, but never and Amazon Fire Tablet. Either way, after the Fire Phone’s dismal outing, and the Fire Tablets’ subpar 2014, Amazon is looking a little bruised and battered on the hardware front.

What’s your take on this? Why can’t Amazon sell more tablets? Are the Fire devices the most underrated pieces of technology of the year? Leave a comment below and start a rousing discussion!

Source: Re/code

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