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Kindle Fire, Nook driving 7-inch display demand

The popularity of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet is pushing panel makers to make more 7-inch displays.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
Amazon

Strong demand for the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet is boosting demand for 7-inch displays above the more traditional 9.7-inch tablet display size, according to an Asia-based report.

Shipments of 7-inch display panels in November grew about 17 percent month on month, surpassing shipments of 9.7-inch displays, according to a report in Taipei-based Digitimes.

Amazon said earlier this month that the Kindle Fire is its bestselling product and sales have been increasing week over week. Sales of at least several million are projected in the first month.

Barnes & Noble, meanwhile, is expected to take delivery of well over a million Nook Tablets and Nook Colors combined in the fourth quarter.

Part of the falloff in demand for the 9.7-inch panel is due to Apple. There was some letup in the purchase of displays for the current iPad as Apple gets ready to launch the next-generation iPad, according to Digitimes.

Strong demand from Apple, however, should resume soon, according to the report. The new iPad is expected in the March-June time frame.