Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster surveyed several Apple Stores on Black Friday and concluded that the iPad sales are inline with expectations, and that the multimedia tablet seems to be selling well with customers that historically have stayed away from the Mac.
The iPad is becoming “the Mac of the masses,” Mr. Munster said.
“We noticed that the iPad is gaining traction (driven by lower price versus the Mac) among demographics in which the Mac has historically not been successful,” he added. “The bottom line is that Apple’s addressable market is expanding with the iPad.”
Based on his research, Mr. Munster estimated Apple was selling 8.8 iPads per hour at the stores his team watched, according to Fortune. In comparison, those locations were selling about 8.2 Macs per hour.
Compared to his surveys in previous years, Mac sales are down. In 2009, Mr. Munster pegged Mac sales at 8.3 per hour, and at 13 per hour in 2008.
Chris Whitmore from Deutsche Bank conducted his own research among Apple Stores and Apple resellers. He came away with comments like “iPads are still selling like crazy,” and “the 11-inch MacBook Air has been flying off the shelves.”
Apple is currently trading at US$313.22, down 1.78 (-0.56%).
2 Comments
My one question is: If the iPad is cutting into PC sales and making the PC sales seem dimmer, why doesn’t it automatically make Apple sales look brighter. I mean, most of the stress is put upon the probability that Apple is somehow stealing future sales away from the Windows PC industry. However, they never directly say that Apple is gaining PC market share and the future looks bright for Apple growth. I’m not saying it makes a difference what analysts say about Apple since it’s only a lot of guesswork. There still seems to be quite a bit of doubt about Apple becoming a significantly wealthier company and that its share value will continue to increase.
Calling the iPad “the Mac for the masses” seems to imply huge growth ahead for Apple (in my opinion), but it’s not being phrased that way. It certainly doesn’t appear to be a rumor investors are buying into.
But.. an iPad needs a Mac or PC to be usable!
The iPad is an extention of a desktop computer, not a replacement.
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