We heard some pretty ridiculous estimates over the weekend, but these figures are straight out of Cupertino's mouth: over 300,000 iPads were sold on April 3rd. Specifically, that many were moved in the US as of midnight (PT, we're assuming) on Saturday, though this
does include deliveries of pre-ordered units to customers, deliveries to channel partners (such as Best Buy) and sales at Apple Retail Stores. We should point out, though, that just because Best Buy purchased a bundle of 'em doesn't mean that end users have (yet), but still, this is a pretty impressive feat for something that not everyone was convinced that they "needed" in
January. If you'll recall, Apple only sold
270,000 iPhones during its first 30 hours on the market, yet it moved
over a million iPhone 3GS units during that handset's opening weekend. In related news,
iPad users also downloaded over a million apps and over 250,000 ebooks from the iBookstore during launch day, with Steve Jobs himself noting that "iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad." Now, let's see if these guys can keep pace through the first full week.
[Thanks,
Tal]
posted April 5th 2010 8:59AM
@kaeljae The iPad is clearly not for everyone. And in fact, I don't think anyone has been forced to buy it, or post comments on this page for the purposes of slating it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
If you are happy with what you have, then I would strongly recommend that you don't buy something you don't need.
There was a time when the iPhone was cutting-edge. A lot of people complained (and still do) complain about it, despite the huge success. If the iPhone was sooo bad, why has Palm, Google, HTC, Motorola and now Microsoft on a bandwagen to create something better than the iPhone, which they regard as the benchmark? I've heard of the MarketPlace, Ovi Store, Omni Store, etc. Who started this mobile store thing, which has now sold more than 1.5bn apps?
The same also true for the iPad.. There are many many Apple haters out there, who would rather a similar (possibly pointless) device which has been developed by someone else. I was not surprised to see the latest HP Slate clip, which is clearly capitalizing on the iPad's omissions. Surely it's better to be ground-breaking, than to be picking up the pieces where others have left off.
@Ruthless Did you even read my post?
@kaeljae
You are correct. That's why the iPad is hugely successful. Your point?
@AlexSanchez By your asinine argument, the DROID flopped.
You haters are really stupid.
I think the numbers are that will be interesting will be the long term sales of the iPad, and not the first weekend numbers. If the sales skyrocket, similar to the Droid and iPhone, than it is a success. If they stagnate, then its obviously not a success. I would be also interested to see the return rate on these, as I think there will be a lot of buyer's remorse given that it is not a tech necessity and doesn't provide any new technology that hasn't been already introduced. I need my phone to make calls, my Zune to run at the gym, my laptop to check my email, and my iPad to... I feel with the iPhone, you were definitely getting something awesome as it could do a lot of things well while also replacing an MP3 player. I've tried out an iPad at the store...and while it might have some use as a bedside quasi-computer, I would probably be more inclined to whip out my laptop to do any real work. Plus, not to start a flame war, but it felt cheap and made quite a bit of noise (you could hear it in a crowded Apple store).
@Bender486
Dude Apple products have the highest satisfaction rates in the industry, i doubt many will be returned. You guys have been spewing that buyers remorse crap for years.
@Kwame Nkrumah
All I said was that I am interested in seeing the return rates since this is one of the first Apple products that isn't a necessity (or be construed as one) in a tech savy house. No one can say that an iPhone doesn't have a purpose, and frankly it does an excellent job of what it does. You NEED a computer, and Mac OS X is a great option for a lot of people. However, the iPad serves NO purpose that a smartphone and a laptop can't already do. It is merely a cool way to do what you already can do. People can justify spending a little more for something they KNOW they are going to use, but this is sort of a new area for them as there isn't a real need that the iPad is addressing. Oh, and past results do NOT indicate future results, especially with a new product like this. Toyota is paying dearly for that mistake, as owners who trusted their quality are now feeling betrayed. A tablet PC and a car are completely different, but all it takes for customers to be unhappy is one bad product. To appease the Apple fans, Windows Millennium. There...everyone's happy.
So before going all positive or negative, let us wait until the dust clears. If you can't buy one at Christmas - success. If you can, and they are on sale - not a success.
@Kwame Nkrumah Sales don't mean what you think they do....... It will sell. There seems to be no shortage of sheople around here, just waiting to be told what to want. Reasonable people hear others out, weigh the content of what they learn, then apply said information. Most of the ipad supporters are simply swinging at anything that sounds critical, not a good showing for apple fans.
@Isror That was the original iphone which was selling for $600 + a 2 year contract compared to $200 or less. Stupid argument.
@Irondog
That's a bunch of bull and you know it, there are a plethora of tablets available and people are choosing to buy the ipad, deal with it and move on.
@Kwame Nkrumah,@Peter Church, @Lays
My goodness, you guys are really such a fanbois...
One side love Ipad so much and defended them like nothing. I wonder will you be that patriotic to your country.
One side hate Apple so much and would love to see them fail hard. Get a life, it didn't fail and it didn't succeed as well.
I read a good analogy on one of the comment. The glass is half full and half empty depend on how you want to see it. Seriously Apple fanbois you guys jump for joy for just 300,000?? With all the media hype, 300,000 is less than excitement. Apple hater, though it doesn't reach 600,000 as the media hope. 300k first day sales almost guaranteed it did not fail.
It's a OK sales performance, the rest of the interpretation is all in your head
OK for the people that say it doesn't make sense to compare the ipad to the iphones, it actually does because you are comparing products made by one company and this is often done by analyst, but I do agree there are many factors to take into consideration. Some things to think about when comparing are, most people think phones are a necessity while many feel the ipad is a want, market awareness, market potential, and even release window (tax return time helps). Also, the US market for the iphone was limited to only ATT subscribers or those that were willing to switch to ATT which since their subscriber numbers have not changed much means it was not many; however, the ipad can be bought by anyone in the US regardless of who they want their phone with which means there was a larger potential market for it, had an established OS, a loyal fan base, and the number one app marketplace. In light of all this did the ipad fail? This is a resounding no! Was it a disappointment? Yes, because it failed to meet expectations in sales. For all the people that says Apple could be skewing the sales numbers by adding shipment numbers and yada yada, even if they only sold 150k units averaging the 32Gb model at $600 with approximate 50% profit per ipad then they would have profited about 45 million on the first day of sales. That's pretty good if you ask most people as evident in their stocks going up. Someone said if they sold less than 2 million in a year then it would be a failure no matter how you spin it well that would be almost $600m in a year for hardware plus whatever software sales will be. That would by no means be a failure. Apple is also competing with itself because like it or not a lot of people see this as being a large ipod touch. What Apple could have done was created a really nice touch screen display that an iphone or ipod touch could snap into thus turning your iphone or touch into an "ipad" for a lot less money than an actual ipad. I could ramble on about all of the faults with the ipad, instead I will just say I will definitely not be an ipad(or slate or generic tablet) buyer because I have a laptop and a smartphone and don't see a need or want for anything in between; however, for those of you who do great. In the future if and when my needs or wants changes, I will compare what is out at the time and buy what best suits me regardless of brand and would hope for the sake of all that any intelligent shopper would do the same.
@Kwame Nkrumah Theres the fanboi again, telling ME what I know..... Your names not steve is it?
@Irondog
Ballmer is that you? Who's the fanboy? Bloody twat.
@Peter Church no, the apple "haters", or intelligent people as they are more commonly known, were not wrong. all of you apple fanboys went out and blew 2-3 paychecks on a glorified, overgrown ipod touch. and idk if 1% of people buying this color screen paper weight is that big of a deal. more people bought a pet rock than an ipad. you all can have the ipad, ill wait for an android or windows tablet thats more than just a money pit. i hope you enjoy your electronic level and compass.
@CBONE no the ipod touch is just a tiny ipad. get it right
The Droid sold over 250,000 its first day too...
@Mrtoocool
No it didn't, that was over a week and I think they also included preorders, somebody correct me if I'm wrong. That 250 000 is not the official numbers from Motorola. They are just estimates from Flurry I believe, Motorola never gave out numbers.
Good for Apple.
Really, it seems like telling us how many apps/ebooks were downloaded is irrelevant. OF COURSE there's going to be a lot of apps downloaded as soon as people get their ipads, that's what you do whenever you get a new system. Whenever you install an OS on a PC it's not like you just sit around and don't install any programs for a few days while you enjoy the default games that come with it.
Where is that dude who said Apple stock price dropped because of this news:
http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?&mode=stock&symbol=AAPL&selected=AAPL&FormType=&mkttype=&pathname=&kind=&page=multi
Its amazing to watch the vitriol the iPad has created on the Internet. I guess people either don't understand business (Apple sure seems to be selling a lot of iPads - they must be giving customers something they want to buy, and should be keeping their shareholders happy) or get confused about technology products (to a lot of people having less features is a great feature - maybe after experience with feature rich products like Microsoft's Word).
The iPad is a product designed to do a certain set of things in what appears to be a simple and intuitive way - and like the iPhone will probably rarely crash because it doesn't try to be a universal computer and Apple controls (and more importantly tests) the software that goes on it. But a lot of people seem to get worked up that you can’t program rockets with it – even though the people buying it don’t have rockets…
Actually, the fact that it doesn’t appeal to opinionated techno-geeks probably adds to its charms.
It shouldn't be a surprise when they sell 2.2 million by the end of the year. The only thing that will stop that number is if HP releases soon and starts showing the youtube commercials it has on TV.
Apple did not invent the tablet.
Nor did they start this new trend.
There have been a lot of devices in the work. And keyboard equipped touchscreeen computers do count.
However like with the iPhone, Apple did make a spot on release, and hit the wave.
The annoying thing is all the people out there who therefor think Apple it the true original.
There was a lot of tablets shown before the iPad.
And there are some products out there... by asus, always innovating, dell, so on.
The cooles one ive seen to date is the Lenovo, and it was shown at CES before the iPadwas shown.
Lenovo do bring something new to the table. But its still a mobile computing device, as netbooks, laptops, slates, large mids and so on.
@JonHolstein
Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, instead they defined the market by creating a much better overall user experience of listening to music (as well as managing it and ultimately buying it) for the majority of people. And as a result they now own the MP3 market.
As you say, Apple didn't invent the tablet (though I'm not sure that is exactly what the iPad is), what will be interesting is whether they end up owning the market. If they do it will be the combination of a well-executed device that meets market needs with the vertical integration they bring to content delivery.
One thing is for sure, it will be all about the content - and not silly distractions like not having USB ports or being able to print.
@zzrwood You're right. The iPad isn't really a tablet PC. The best thing to do is stop referring to it as a PC, and hopefully most people will shut up. I need a PC, so I won't need the iPad anyway =)
That 300,000 does not mean 300,000 people bought it. It means Apple sold 300,000 units to people and other retailers (Best Buy, Frys, etc...) Never believe it when a company says they sold X amount of units, it is never accurate.
No camera, no flash and no multi-tasking = a great thing. Here's why:
Flash sucks. Flash banners are annoying and flash interactivity is always bloated slow and bad useability.
Multi-tasking sucks. Multi-tasking means not consentrating on one thing. Multi tasking means doing multiple things poorly.
Camera sucks. Why would you use an iPad for a camera? You would look stupid.
@designer989
Flash does suck BUT ONLY WHEN CODING POORLY. Also, flash is used in many websites, sometimes for the simplest of things. Take for example the Engadget podcasts. When they record, it takes a few days to get uploaded on iTunes so it's fast to just come to the site and just hit the "play" button in the tiny little flash component. I don't need to download or anything, I can just stream but you can't. Not all of it is bloat as you say. Some use it properly.
"Multi-tasking sucks. Multi-tasking means not concentrating on one thing. Multi tasking means doing multiple things poorly."
Really?....REALLY??? I think you need more of a explanation behind that statement because multitasking has been vital to some of our technological advances...like say...oh, I don't know....the PC??!
The camera that people reference to most times is not one that you can take pictures with, its mostly a front facing camera for video chats. The iPad would have been ideal to have that kind of functionality and the fact that it was left out was a bitch-move by Jobs to save it for some other generation of iPads (maybe 3rd Gen.)
I was one of those 300,000 but today I returned my iPAD. It did not have nearly the range for Wi-Fi in my home as a laptop and therefore I will wait for the 3G model. Also, it runs like my iPhone and therefore makes the most sense as a 3G device. I suspect that the size of the antenna is smaller and thus this limits the Wi-Fi performance.
http//www.dishler.com
go get them Apple!
It seem the reality is more like this: Apple push 300k units into the channels. How of these have been sold day 1? Probably not all as I haven't yet seen a report stating there is shortage of iPad anywhere.
Argghh! Cant wait o get my hands on one, come on Apple!
http://www.dreamwalkmobile.com