Despite a strong start, you may have heard that the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s latest entry into the tablet market, isn’t all that great after all. People weren’t that impressed with several aspects of the Kindle Fire and didn’t take kindly to being made to feel that they were suffering from “fat-finger problem.” In fact, Amazon even acknowledged the tablet’s flaws and has promised to provide an update that will improve the performance of the Kindle Fire and, perhaps more importantly, hopefully turn those frowns upside down.
Who knows if this update will satiate the expectations of Kindle Fire owners, and I’m sure we’ll all hear about it if it doesn’t. Still, has the dissatisfied present and uncertain future discouraged shoppers from buying the Kindle Fire.
In a word: No!
With seemingly no regard to the first impressions of Kindle Fire, consumers appear undeterred and the unit sales of the tablet, according to a report from Goldman Sachs today, are on course to reach 6 million by the end of the year. What’s more, Goldman Sachs went on to project that Amazon could sell 15.5-20.5 million units in Kindle Fire’s first full year of availability. Details can be found in the bar graph below.
From the above data, John Paczkowski of All Things D points out that “if Amazon does manage to sell six million Fires before the end of the year, it will surpass the iPad’s domestic sales in its first December quarter in 2010.”
Really? Topping sales of something Apple? That’s quite a feat, but what’s going on with this surge of Kindle Fires? Do people not really seem to care that initial reviews of the Kindle Fire were, at best, disappointed?
One report claims that people are still drawn towards the Kindle Fire because of its considerably lower cost than an iPad. Furthermore, the Goldman Sachs report suggests that the Kindle Fire still has appeal to consumers because, in spite of the many flaws, the tablet still gets the bare minimum of functions correct, which just happen to be the functions that tablet users utilize the most (I guess people are satisfied enough that the Kindle Fire powers on and displays different words – easy enough to meet those needs, sure).
Whatever fix Amazon’s update to the Kindle Fire brings to users, the tablet is still expected to stake a healthy claim in the tablet market. It’s already expected to outpace Samsung’s top tablet and analysts are curious to see how much of a bite the Kindle Fire will take out of Apple’s market dominance.
So is the Kindle Fire really the maxim “You get what you pay for” in action? Maybe, and it’s certainly not the only device to be met with milquetoast reviews upon its initial release. Do you think Amazon can damage control itself out of its lackluster start and make the Kindle Fire a true competitor to Apple’s iPad? Comment below to let us know.