About That 22% Android Tablet Figure [Update]

So the web is in a tizzy that Android so quickly took 22% of the tablet market – a huge bite out of the iPad with seemingly one major tablet – The Tab. So you can only imagine what next year will offer. Well the only problem is that the 22% figure is wrong. See, it was based off of the supposed sales of the Tab which was reported to have had 2 million tablets sold. Only problem is that the 2million figure was not sales to end users – it was 2million Tabs shipped to outlets. Yup, this is the same accounting that MS was accused of when dealing with WP7 and we’ve always made it clear what the figure was. Well Samsung has stated that it was Tabs shipped, not Tabs sold. In the words of Samsung VP Lee Young-hee

As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive and this first quarterly result was quite, you know, fourth-quarter unit [figure] was around two million. Then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite small. We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasn’t as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK.

But of course Doug Simmons demands numbers, so where are they? “As you know, the tablet is relatively new and we need to see how the market develops before we give any firm numbers.” Yeah so it’s just like MS. Don’t expect the numbers tomorrow but you do have a sense as to where they are…and they’re not at or close to 22% of the market. Next!

Update: It turns out that the Tab also had a 16% return rate. Compare that to the 2% return rate for an iPad. So yeah, those who did buy it didn’t fall in love with it.