Thursday's media reports of sales collapsing after a stellar launch are misleading, a leading analyst says, and an indication that many tech bloggers and journalists don't understand the difference between "shipments" and "sales" of a product.

In a Friday titled "Shipments Are Not Sales," Stephen Baker of The NPD Group pulls no punches in chastising tech bloggers for misinterpreting new data from research firm , which shows a dramatic drop in shipments of Android tablets in the first quarter of 2012.

If you skim yesterday's IDC press release quickly, it's easy to surmise that Amazon's Kindle Fire had a particularly terrible quarter. Here's a quote:

"Amazon, which stormed into the market in 4Q11 to grab second place with 16.8% of the market on shipment of 4.8 million units, saw its share decline significantly in the first quarter to just over 4%, falling to third place as a result."

Many bloggers saw the drop in Kindle Fire shipments as an indication that Amazon is losing ground in the tablet race--and that consumers may already have soured on the company's new 7-inch slate.