It’s been a while since Apple gave us an update on how many tablets it has sold but we should have a definitive number when the company announces its next quarter earnings Oct. 18. That doesn’t stop analysts from guessing though, and reports suggest Apple could have sold as many as 8.25 million iPad units.
The analyst estimates vary from 6 to 3.8 million Apple iPad sales for the quarter and the consensus number helps us get to the figure above. Remember, we’re already adding the 3.27 million tablets the company shipped last quarter.
The Apple iPad has unquestionably been a hit and it will be interesting to see how many units it has sold this last quarter. The tablet form factor has been around for years but this was the first device to finally break through those barriers to become a mass-market device.
A report from CNBC suggests the Apple iPad has a sales rate of 4.5 million units per quarter which would make it the non-phone device with the quickest adoption rate, surpassing DVD players and other goods.
This may also be the last quarter Apple has to itself, as we are seeing a glut of tablets from the competition. The Apple iPad has been gaining traction with enterprise users, so Research In Motion has been forced to bring out a tablet of its own.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is sporting a dual-core 1 GHz processor and the company is marketing it as ready for enterprises out of the box. It’s due to hit in early 2011 but we’re still not sure of the pricing.
On the consumer side, the Galaxy Tab is coming to all four major U.S. carriers and it could be subsidized to make it cheaper out of the gates than the Apple iPad. Of course, this will also likely come with a monthly data plan, which will boost the total cost of ownership.
[Via Fortune]