Everyone already knows about the massive sales of the HP TouchPad that were generated when the company launched the tablet at $499 in July and dropped it to just $99 a month later. HP quickly wrapped up their tablet endeavors, wrote off a painful $100 million loss and said kumbaya to the tablet industry (well so they said at that point). Within days, hundreds of thousands of HP TouchPads were sold in the firesale and HP’s CEO was fired due to the roller-coaster ride he took his investors on.

HP TouchPad Gets 17% Market-Share Despite Massive Losses

However it seems as though the huge losses to the company’s bottom line did have at least one upside and that was their very unexpected acquiring of 17% of the tablet industry market-share. Many people called it a complete fluke and keep bringing up the fact that they invested hundreds of millions into its development, but at least they got some sort of a return on investment.

Many tablets currently on the market by companies like Asus, Samsung and Motorola have very dismal sales and are continuing to dump money into their tablets, so in hindsight, HP TouchPad fiasco might not have been that bad for the company.

At this point, the only downfall for HP is the fact that they’ve halted the production of anymore TouchPads and currently have no plan to bring them back. Hopefully they’re also smart enough to realize that it wasn’t a sudden epiphany that consumers had about the awesomeness of their tablets, but rather the fact that they were just so cheaply priced (it costs them about $350 to make).

Apple’s iPad Sold 11.1 Million Units In Q4

HP is continue to keep it’s 17% market share and #2 spot until another tablet maker eventually creeps up behind them and steals the spot; of course assuming they don’t get back into the industry with extremely cheap tablets.

The number one spot belongs to Apple’s iPad which sold 11.1 million units in this quarter alone. iPad sales for Q4 are up 166% from last year and is being tested/used by 92% of Fortune 500 companies. The Cupertino-based tablet maker is also distributing its iPad is over 90 countries and controls a whopping 75% of the tablet industry’s market-share.