It looks as if seven inch tablets are beginning to take a huge bite out of the market share of notebooks. One example of this is the spike in shipments of the Nexus 7. Global sales of the best selling Google device to date have seen an increase from 500,000 – 600,000 a month initially, to 800,000 – 900,000 in November. This number is expected to jump over the one million unit bar during the holiday season. These numbers are based on reports from Taiwan based supply chain makers.
Quanta Computer out of Taiwan, responsible for ODM production of the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Google Nexus 7, are expecting to ship between three to four million Kindle Fires and two to three million Nexus 7s in the fourth quarter alone. This of course is offset by the large decrease in shipments of notebook computers, according to a source. The consolidated revenues from November have seen a decrease of 13.29% or $2.95 billion (US).
With these figures, along with the shipments of Apple’s iPad Mini, 1.5 million in November and two million in December, (according to Foxconn Electronics and Pegatron Technology) we see that the battlefield for mobile computing has shifted to seven inch devices. They offer the perfect blend of portability and function. Not to mention the extremely attractive price points. I’ve also long contended that a seven inch tab makes the perfect gift for just about anyone and in my opinion that’s where Amazon’s sales of the Kindle fire come from.
Personally, even with a shiny new Nexus 4 and also a Motorola XOOM I still find myself using my Nexus 7 as the go to device for just about anything that I need to do. The size is great for everything from web browsing to reading a book. The movie and television experience obviously isn’t as good as on a ten inch screen but for what you pay for a smaller tablet it’s something you can deal with if you are given the option to save a couple hundred bucks.
These numbers are definitely nothing to sneeze at. Are any of you planning on gifting a tablet this holiday season? Maybe buying one for yourself? Let us know if you are planning to contribute to these sales figures.