Apple sells 22.9M iPads in Q1, but did cheap Android tablets hurt sales?

Apple sold a record 22.9 million iPads in the first fiscal quarter of 2013, an increase of 67 percent over the same period a year ago, the company said today.

Wall Street analysts had been expected iPad sales of 22 million to 23 million units, so it at least met expectations on that front, unlike its iPhone numbers.

Going back a few quarters, Apple sold 14 million iPads in Q4 2012 and sold 17 million iPads in Q3 2012.

While these iPad sales are good, two Android tablets in particular could have impacted them — the $200 Google Nexus 7 and $200 Amazon Kindle Fire. Both are good machines that do most of what you can with an iPad, and they cost less than the iPad Mini’s base price of $330. Surprisingly enough, the Nexus 7 has overtaken iPad’s market share in Japan, according to a recent Nikkei survey.

There have also been recent reports that the success of the iPad Mini has hurt the demand for the full-size iPad. But since Apple does not break down its sales of iPad Mini versus the full-size iPad, we don’t know exactly how many of which were sold this past quarter.

iPad Mini photo via John Koetsier/VentureBeat