14 DAY TRIAL // The Kindle Fire has proven to be a smashing hit for Amazon which is now expected to sell more than 6 million of these 7-inch tablets by the end of the year, making it one of the most successful products in the company’s history.
According to the Goldman Sachs report, the 6 million Kindle Fire tablets will also be joined in Q4 by other 8 million Kindle-branded eBook readers, raising Amazon’s Kindle shipments to an impressive 14 million units.
Furthermore, at the end of its first year of availability, Kindle Fire sales are expected to reach between 15.5 million and 20.5 million units, according to the same report cited by Business Insider.
The popularity of the device is attributed to the Fire’s low price tag and its focus on multimedia consumption.
"While the Kindle Fire certainly doesn't have the breadth of functionality of the iPad (no camera or microphone, shorter battery life and less memory), it does a few things very well, which just happen to be the few actions that users utilize the tablet form factor most often for, in our view," the report said.
Amazon unveiled the Kindle Fire on September 28 and the tablet is based on a customized version of Android that comes with a unique interface to detach itself form all the other tablets out there running this OS.
Hardware wise, the Fire has a 7-inch IPS screen with a 1024x600 resolution, Gorilla Glass coating, a dual-core processor, and all of these are fitted inside a chassis that weighs 14.6 ounces (roughly 413 grams).
The tablet comes with a wide series of multimedia services pre-installed providing its users with access to over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, apps and games as well as with support for the Amazon Cloud and Whispersync services.
Despite its huge popularity, the Fire has also been the target of many grievances with users complaining about poor Wi-Fi connectivity, slow browsing speed and lack of parental controls. To address these issues, Amazon has promised a firmware update that should arrive in the next couple of weeks.