ASUS Finally Coughs Up Some Nexus 7 Sales Numbers

The only thing we’ve really known about the Nexus 7 numbers, as commenters like Flexhead have rightly pointed out, is that Google is happy with them. Obviously the Nexus 7 isn’t beating the iPad, but we don’t know what makes Google happy, either.

Well, we know now, because ASUS, the Taiwanese computer maker Google contracts with to make the device, has revealed how well it’s doing.

The short answer is “sales are good for an Android tablet, obviously not as good as the iPad”:

Asustek CFO David Chang told the WSJ that the company was selling—not just shipping—500,000 units a month initially, when the Nexus 7 launched in July. Figures bumped up to 600,000-700,000 in the following months, and in “this latest month,” Google and Asus have sold close to one million units, said Chang.

That’s pretty good for any piece of technology, but it’s not iPad level: Apple moves nearly five million of those a month. Also not included are the profit margins. It’s fairly obvious that ASUS isn’t losing any money on these, so Google is likely paying for them and making up the difference in media and app sales.

The interesting part, of course, is that Christmas is coming up. Apple is about to drop the iPad Mini for $330, while Google just rolled out a 32GB Nexus 7 and dropped the 16GB version’s price to $200. And let’s not forget that Amazon has the Kindle Fire in this race as well, although those still aren’t true tablets.

In short, it’s going to be an entertainingly bloody Christmas in terms of sales. We can’t wait!