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All Apple had to do to sell iPads was make them cheaper
It's been about a year and a half since Apple introduced the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. It was a great device, but it also made Apple's tablet lineup more confusing than ever. I wrote at the time that Apple seemed to be just throwing ideas out there, trying to see what would make customers get back in the store and buy more iPads. I also noted that it wasn't even clear what the "best" iPad was anymore. It's taken a while, but Apple has streamlined its lineup, making clear separations among products in terms of both price and feature set. As a result, iPad sales increased year over year for the first time since the holiday quarter of 2013 (when Apple sold a whopping 26 million tablets). But this quarter's turnaround wasn't driven by Apple's "future of personal computing" vision promised by the iPad Pro. Nor was it driven by the Pro's useful features, which will only get more compelling when iOS 11 launches this fall. No, sales increased because Apple finally made a plain iPad that isn't terribly ambitious -- just affordable.
Visualized: eBay's iPad 2 sales, thus far
Although eBay figures don't exactly correlate with Apple's sales numbers, it's interesting to note who's buying what, and where. Last year, for example, in the first two weeks after the Apple iPad hit shelves, 65 percent of all iPads sold on eBay went abroad. This year, in the same timeframe, the percentages have been flipped -- 65 percent of iPad 2s sold on eBay remained in America, or around 7,800 tablets. Perhaps we're just seeing higher demand or maybe people don't like waiting in line. Peep the source link to dive deeper into the comparison.
Subsidized iPads starting slow in UK
Orange UK, as part of Everything Everywhere, announced their subsidy plan for new iPads back in November. According to information relayed from The Times by paidContent: UK, the company had expected to sell tens of thousands of the tablet over the holidays. However, it turns out they only sold a little over a thousand in the first week. Updates to the original story say deeper sales occurred later in the holiday season, although there hasn't been much official confirmation about what that exact number might be. It seems clear that the subsidized iPads haven't started off as strongly as might have been hoped. The slow start could be due to subscribers being unwilling to stack iPad data plans on top of cellular plans, or Orange might not have gotten word out to its buyers. [Via MacRumors]
Analyst says Christmas may not be so green for the iPad
There is at least one Scrooge this holiday season, and it's Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw. While there had been estimates of 6 million iPad sales by the end of the year, Kumar has pulled back to an estimate of 5 million because the iPad, and other tablet PCs are just not "must have" purchases. Other issues may be difficulties in the supply chain, and the analyst notes that Dell and Samsung are cutting back production due to lower-than-predicted sales. Apple has expanded retail outlets who sell the iPad, including Target and Verizon. It's also been noted by some observers Kumar himself that sales of the 11.6-inch MacBook Air could be cannibalizing the Pad (emphasis on the 'could be' as opposed to 'shown to be with hard evidence). Apple has estimated sales for 2010 of 4.9 million iPads. Of course it's all speculation for now. The new iOS 4.2 could stimulate tablet sales, and it should be noted that Apple almost always exceeds predictions. Even Mr. Kumar is still bullish on Apple, and rates the stock as a "market outperform." We should note for the record that Kumar's scorecard as a predictor of market trends and product announcements for Apple is, to put it mildly, quite spotty. Take his iPad estimates with the requisite large grain of salt. [via the Mac Observer]
Microsoft acknowledges iPad's effect on netbook market
Just in case you haven't heard, the iPad is having a rather large impact on the computing world around us. And if you don't believe the numerous analysts, business adopters and retailers, then perhaps Microsoft's own Gavriella Schuster, general manager for Windows product management, will sway you. In response to Nick Eaton from the Seattle PI, speaking to Schuster about the success of the iPad and other pending tablet devices threatening Windows' hold on the netbook market, Schuster said (referring to her pink netbook in front of her), "These [netbooks] are definitely getting cannibalized. These are really a second device. But they are getting cannibalized." We know that Windows dominates on the netbook scene. It's a huge market for Microsoft (according to Nick Eaton, over 90% of netbooks ship with Windows installed). So, for Schuster to openly admit that the netbook market is being cannibalized by the iPad further illustrates how it is changing the way we use computers today. [via ComputerWorld]
Analyst: Sharp rise in iPad sales estimates
Yet again, more analyst news regarding the iPad impacting laptop and netbook sales. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that estimated sales of the iPad for 2010 have more than doubled to 11 or 12 million units sold this year, with 20 million iPads expected to be sold in 2011 -- which is still conservative according to some other analysts. In contrast, the NPD Group estimates that sales of laptop units in the US rose by only 12% in the first eight months of this year as apposed to a 30% percent increase in sales last year for the same period. On top of that, NDP Group reports that unit sales were down 1% over July and August -- the peak back-to-school season for such sales. Naturally, the WSJ points to the sluggish economy for such a shift. The paper does also note that some shoppers are preferring to buy the iPad, even at a premium price, over cheaper laptops and netbooks, though the iPad represents only a fraction of portable computer sales overall. The article suggests that the competition for consumers' dollars will become even more fierce with the emergence of competing tablet devices from other manufacturers later this year and next year. But for now, there is still no doubt that Apple is leading the way with the iPad. For the full WSJ article click here.
Analyst: Apple selling more iPads than Macs, at the moment
So there's no question that Apple is selling a ton of iPads, but would you have guessed that it's actually selling more iPads than all Mac sales combined? That's the case, at least at the moment, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky, who says that Apple is currently moving about 200,000 iPads per week, compared to 110,000 Macs -- though it still trails the iPhone, which is apparently racking up sales of 246,000 per week. Of course, we are just talking about analyst estimates here, and things could potentially swing back into the Mac's favor once the quarterly totals are added up. If true, however, it'd sure be a whopper of a milestone -- one that we'd no doubt be hearing plenty more about in, say, three weeks time.
Chitika labs estimates that over one million iPads have been sold
On April 8th, just six days after the iPad went on sale, we ran a post writing that Chitika Labs (who had been tracking iPad sales by counting cookies of new iPads hitting the Internet) claimed that Apple had sold 564,257 units. The method used is admittedly not the best of all possible metrics, but it does provide an indication of how many new iPads were leaving the shelves. Today, 15 days later, Chitika reported that over 1,000,000 iPads have been sold. They also claim that over 32,000 new iPads were seen on the Internet today, representing 4% of all total iPad sales. Thanks to TUAW reader "xamevou" for sending this in.
