Gazelle: Third-gen iPad trade-ins spiked after iPad 4, mini announcement
On October 23, 2012 when Apple announced the fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini, the TUAW newsroom was abuzz with questions, one of which was "How many owners of third-generation iPads are going to get rid of their 'old' devices to get a new iPad?" Thanks to Gazelle, a company that accepts trade-ins of Apple gear in return for cold, hard cash, we how have an answer of sorts.
On that day, Gazelle recorded a 700 percent increase in the volume of iPad trade-ins, with 450 percent of that increase happening immediately after the end of the Apple announcement. So, how many of those trade-ins were third-gen iPads? Gazelle's numbers show that a whopping 70 percent of the trade-in offers made were for iPad 3s, with the 32 GB WiFi model being the most popular trade-in.
Not every iPad 3 owner jumped on the opportunity to get one of the new devices. But Gazelle alone presented about 140,000 offers on October 23 to iPad owners anxious to go faster or smaller. That's a lot of people clamoring to trade in a device that was only seven months old.
Gazelle Chief Gadget Officer Anthony Scarsella also noted that a whopping 17 million connected devices were activated on Christmas Day 2012 -- that's up from 6.8 million the year before. It looks like there will be a lot of trade-ins coming up after Apple's next announcements.
