Ever since the Nexus 7 started selling there has been very little in the way of information available to estimate just how many of the 7 inch tablets were being sold. Early on a figure of 600,000 had been mentioned as an 'initial' production batch in a Digitimes article. But with the Google Play store and retailers quickly selling out of the 16GB model and with demand apparently stronger than expected we've been eagerly waiting for some more info to leak so we could see just how many of Google and Asus's new babies were hitting consumer's hands. Well...we might have just had our first release of pertinent info.
In another 'Digitimes' article released early this morning the Taiwan based technology source, which admittedly has a sketch record, reports that in the 3rd quarter of 2012, the company will order a grand total of 4 million display panels from manufacturing partners Wintek and TPK. From the article:
Taiwan-based TPK Holding and Wintek will ship an estimated total of 4.0 million OGS (one glass solution) touch panels for use in Nexus 7 tablet PCs during the third quarter of 2012, according to industry sources in Taiwan. "Each of the two companies shipped 500,000 such panels in June and 700,000 units in July, resulting in a cumulative total shipment volume of 2.4 million units so far, the sources pointed out."
The article goes on to say that in the 4th quarter production is expected to be reduced to between 100,000 to 400,000 panels (and thus devices) per month because of what it expects will be added competition in the 7 inch sector by a new version of Amazon's Kindle Fire and a possible new iPad device from Apple (their rumored 'iPad Mini). Of course we think the Nexus 7 will hold up rather well against any new Amazon or Apple competition and so wouldn't be surprised if the Nexus 7 figures ended up in the high part of that range which would bring the total of Nexus 7 Tablets sold over the 5 million point for 2012.
Of course these figures are for numbers of devices manufactured...not necessarily sold. However, considering the apparent demand for the device we think actual sales figures will be very close to these. So are you impressed by the numbers of Nexus 7s apparently being made? More or less than you thought? And how do you think the Nexus 7 sales will hold up during the all-important holiday shopping season, especially against new devices from Amazon and Apple? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Digitimes
