Google has so far not given an exact figure for the number of Honeycomb tablets sold, but that doesn't mean we can't deduce a rough estimate of 3.42 million based on all of its other published data.
Yesterday during the company's quarterly earnings call, CEO Larry Page revealed that 190 million Android devices had been activated. The other piece of the puzzle comes from Android developer's page on current platform distribution, and as of October 3rd, just 1.8 percent of the Android devices that had recently accessed the market were Honeycomb (versions 3.0, 3.1, or 3.2). In other words, (190 million devices) * (1.8 percent) = 3.42 million. Whoever said math wasn't helpful?
There are, of course, a number of a caveats with this figure. That 1.8 percent figure is just under two weeks old, and although we're not expecting a dramatic rise in Honeycomb sales, there's a good chance that number will fluctuate (either up or down, based on the relative sales of Gingerbread and Froyo devices). Additionally, it only tracks devices that access the Android market — far be it for us to judge a Honeycomb owner that doesn't use the market, but they assuredly exist.
Finally, and most importantly, Android tablets running Gingerbread — of which there are still numerous — aren't counted in the 3.42 million. The total number of Gingerbread devices (phone and tablet) make up 38.7 percent of the distribution, or approximately 73.5 million — and that number is sure to rise given the Gingerbread-powered Amazon Kindle Fire and the hundreds of Gingerbread phones due out before every company gets a row at the yet-to-be-unveiled Ice Cream Sandwich update.
To say there are only 3.42 million Android tablets in the market thus far, in the seven months since the first Honeycomb device (Motorola Xoom) was released, isn't quite a fair statement. Still, consider Apple's claim that it can sells 3 out of every 4 tablets in the US, quarterly reports of 7.33 million iPads over a holiday quarter, and an estimated 1 million in the iPad 2's launch weekend alone. It's clear that Google has a long battle of itself.