The Kindle Fire isn't the purported "iPad killer" some positioned it to be, but according to IHS iSuppli, it's already the number two tablet on the market.
ISuppli predicted that Amazon will ship 3.9 million Kindle Fires in the last three months of 2011 to secure 13.8 percent of the market. Apple will hold fast to the majority of the tablet share, shipping 18.6 million iPads for 65.6 percent in the fourth quarter.
While that projection doesn't put the Kindle Fire tablet anywhere near unseating the iPad, Amazon's device has handily left every other tablet on the market in the dust and nabbed a larger share than other iPad competitors. The closest tablet to the Fire is the Samsung Galaxy Tab; iSuppli predicted Samsung will ship 1.4 million tablets for a 4.8 percent stake by the end of the year.
A recent Changewave report also noted that rather than steal from the iPad, the $199 Kindle Fire is eating at the market share of other non-Apple tablets.
A recent report from Digitmes corroborated iSuppli's estimate. Digitimes on Friday said "industry watchers" were reporting shipments of 3-4 million Fires from Quanta, Amazon's supplier in China, which is expected to reach 5 million by the end of December or the beginning of January.
ISuppli, meanwhile, said that by the end of 2011, overall tablet shipments will hit 64.7 million units, up from its August estimate of 60 million. That is a 273 percent boost from 2010, when 17.4 million tablets were shipped. The market will continue on the upward path, iSuppli said, reaching 287.2 million shipments by 2015.
Amazon has yet to release official numbers, and considering it's never gotten specific about the number of Kindle e-readers it has sold, it might be a while before this data is confirmed.
For more, see PCMag's full reviews of the Kindle Fire and iPad 2 and the Fire slideshow below.