Asus CFO told The Wall Street Journal late Tuesday that the Nexus 7, Google well-received, affordable 7-inch Android tablet was nearing 1 million in sales per month, having picked up the pace considerably over the last month in particular. Chang noted that unit sales rose from roughly 500,000 around the time of its introduction in June/July, and rose steadily after that. Tablet sales for Asus beat analyst expectations, likely as a result of the Google-branded Nexus device, which got an update earlier this week in terms of base storage specs at both price points.
The Nexus 7 sales, which would seem to end up totalling somewhere around 3 million based on the figures Chang shared, might be the glimpse yet we’ve had at the current size of the small tablet market. It’s a stat that will prove important for those watching the tech industry going forward, as Apple’s iPad mini debuts this upcoming Friday, and following that we’ll likely get more info from Cupertino about how iPad mini sales have fared so far, if the company sticks with its usual pattern of release early sales figures post-launch.
