Apple iPad Sales Show Little Signs of Slowing
By Ed Oswald | Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Even the most die-hard Apple fans need to admit the company’s sales of the iPad are somewhat surprising. It took the company four weeks to sell one million units, and another four weeks to sell an additional million.
This torrid pace would put it on par to possibly surpass even the most rosy predictions put out by analysts before the device’s launch in April of this year. It now puts into doubt whether Apple will really need to make adjustments to the price of the device, which it had said it would be willing to do in order to ensure the device meets its sales goals.
If it’s selling well now and hard to keep in stock, why make less of a profit now? May not be great for us consumers, but it is surely good for Apple’s investors.
Apple’s iPad successes make the current tiff between Microsoft and Google somewhat amusing. For those that missed it, Microsoft’s Steve Guggenheimer told the Wall Street Journal that manufacturer’s current apparent preference for Android on tablets was nothing more than a red herring, and that the company would lead the market overall in due time.
Kind of funny for two companies squabbling over products which for the most part haven’t even shipped yet, no? On top of that, I’d argue that Microsoft should be worrying about surpassing Apple in the space, not Google.
I am definitely interested to see how Apple does once Microsoft and Google have their own tablet devices on the market and in front of the customer. I believe that the iPad’s success has a lot to do with the popularity of the iPhon–a “halo effect” of a different kind if you will–and the device really does not have any competition at this point.
With alternatives on the market, and quite possibly at a lower price, will Apple’s name be enough to carry the day? I guess we’ll be finding out.
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MG BLOG » The Print Dilemma Says:
September 20th, 2010 at 12:09 am[…] the dire situation, there is some hope. With the success of the Apple IPad and the rising tablet market, (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369241,00.asp) newspapers have […]
June 1st, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Sure, I’m surprised. But only because Apple was able to produce them that quickly.
Apple has been selling the latest gadget as fast as they can make them for years now.
June 1st, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Apple won’t stop until every person in the world is using an ipad of iphone.
June 1st, 2010 at 8:39 pm
39 million netbooks were sold in 2009. I do NOT believe the ipad will sell even 15 million this year (10-12 million, maybe), but it is a better device than a netbook, for most people, at a similar price point.
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:47 am
Nothing to worry about. There is the R&D needed. 🙂
But for me, Apple iPad is still the best.
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I’ve been a very happy owner of the Apple iPad for almost two full months. I have to say I simply love it. I agree with Tom B when he says that the iPad may not beat NetBook sales this year, but eventually, they will. This of course is in my opinion as my old NetBook now lays in a corner collecting dust.
Really, the iPad is an awesome device, I wouldn’t trade it for any other type of mobile computing device.
Cheers,
Anthony
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:01 pm
The reason Ballmer is talking about competing with Android is that, unlike Apple, Microsoft and Google sell (or give away) their mobile OS not to us punters, but to OEMs.
Microsoft doesn’t compete with Apple in that space.
Ballmer wants OEMs to pay for WinCE, rather than get Android for free. And that’s a very hard sell, for the player trying to catch up with version 1.0 against Android 2.2.
June 27th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Well, Apple has already sold more than 3 billion iPad devices and I guess it won’t stop on this. iPad is a really great device that is loved by people and it has already found it’s market share between smartphones and PC. The number of iPad apps is growing every day so I think the number of iPad users will increase as well.
July 31st, 2010 at 7:10 pm
My brother gave me an Android tablet he got cheap from China. It's a piece of crap. The user interface is confusing, inconsistent. Imagine, to open a PDF, I had to go through Linux-like directories: rootuserpublicdocumentsmyfiles! It also dies after an hour of use! So I bought an iPad. Gosh! I slept at 5am because I couldn't stop using it. Today, I brought it to the mall with me and it was great. People kept on trying to take peeks at it. I read PDF files of magazines, I surfed the web with mall's free wi-fi. I'm thinking of getting an Apple bluetooth keyboard so I can type up some work assignments. Its just simply great to bring along. Whenever I brought along my laptop, I ended up never using it.
I've seen Windows laptops and the Windows OS simply wasn't made for touch. The icons are too small, the gestures aren't built in. It'll just be frustrating and confusing to use.
I think Apple will outsell netbooks for sure. It'll also probably own the tablet market for some time to come given the lousy offerings so far coming from Microsoft and Google.
September 21st, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Well, if they sold 2 million iPads, why is it that only 500,000 are on ATT's network? http://5but.sl.pt
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:02 am
IPads come in WiFi or WiFi/3G versions. The WiFi only version is less expensive and I suspect that it is a far bigger seller than the WiFi/3G model.
October 27th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
I am on the iPad right now in class. This is my lastclas for the semester and holy crap I'm bored. Thank god I brought this thing to class. And at least now I know I have good AT&T Coverage here
November 7th, 2011 at 2:50 am
I have the AT&T version wifi-3G and was also a first gen iPad user. I've not had any issues with my wifi or 3G service. Have u tried "forget this network" in settings and then resetting ur router and setting it up again?