Andy Rubin: There's 6M Android tablets sold

[Bateluer]

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/10/19/andy-rubin-android-running-on-6-million-tablets-worldwide/

He says that according to Google, there are 6 million tablets in people’s hands that run the Android operating system. A much larger number than what has been reported before.

This number makes sense too, taking into account all the Froyo and Gingerbread tablets that were pushed out into the public’s hands before they got Google’s official blessing.

Thats still crappy, IMO, if you compare to the iPad sales. But, really good if you compare to something like a game console.

Pretty certain we'll be watching that number skyrocket in 2012, with ICS, Tegra 3, Krait, Exynos, etc. But, again, thats tomorrow. This is today.

 

[Glitchny]

This number also only counts the tablets with Google Apps

 

[Mopetar]

I don't think people ever said they were that low. The 3.5 million figure that was bandied about was identified as Honeycomb tablets. Were there so many people misinterpreting that data that Google somehow felt that they needed to come out and announce an exact figure?

 

[runawayprisoner]

3.4M pretty much means wary developers. 6M is a much more acceptable figure.

2012 may be the year those figures shoot up, but that's to be seen... as the iPad 3 will come out.

 

[badb0y]

Kindle Fire= instawin

 

[smartpatrol]

Kindle Fire= instawin

instawin for Amazon maybe. Google doesn't have much to gain from it, though.

 

[Mopetar]

instawin for Amazon maybe. Google doesn't have much to gain from it, though.

Honestly, Kindle Fire represents a bigger threat to Android tablets than the iPad ever has. Only 6 million Android tablets have been sold thus far according to Google, although that number is a little low as it only includes devices that ship with the Google apps.

Amazon could easily surpass that number, especially if Android tablet sales in general don't pick up. If Amazon sticks with a 2.x version of Android, developers are going to be torn before developing for 4+ and having to back port to work on Amazon's app store or developing for the Kindle Fire first and not taking advantage of changes and improvements made since 2.x. It gets even worse if Amazon decides to fork Android and develop their own stuff in the future.

 

[vi edit]

Are half of those Nook Colors who's majority of users don't even know that Android is on them?

🙂

 

[Mopetar]

Are half of those Nook Colors who's majority of users don't even know that Android is on them?

I believe that those aren't counted in the 6 Million figure.