Google: 6 million Android tablets 'out there'

Finally answering the question that industry observers have been asking for some time, Google senior vice president of mobile Andy Rubin has confirmed there are currently 6 million tablet computers based on Android™ software in the wild.

This revelation comes shortly after an unofficial estimate found there to be roughly 3.4 million Android tablets currently in use. This previous estimate, based on Google's platform version stats and official activation numbers, includes only devices running Honeycomb, the tablet-specific version of Android.

It is unclear whether Rubin's figure only accounts for Honeycomb-based tablets as well, or if it also includes previous versions, such as Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread.

"Six million is pretty healthy but it is not 30 million," Rubin told an audience at the All Things D conference in Asia, according to a SlashGear report. "Obviously we need to get there."

For perspective, research firm IDC estimates that 62.5 million tablets will ship worldwide in 2011. Google evidently has work to do if it wants to capture a bigger piece of the market.