Apple just announced that is had sold 1 million iPads during the first day of the device. Is this a lot? Is this enough to justify the new products category Apple claims to have created?
To put this into perspective have to take a similar look few other devices that seam to establish a new category.
While there were smart phones before the iPhone, it changed the landscape forever and it was the first such product from Apple. The original iPhone was also sold only in the US initially and it took 2.5 months for it to reach the 1 million mark. Obviously some may consider this a slow start but it is definitely a humble beginnings given consecutive launches of the device with the 3G and 3Gs models making 1 million during the first weekend of sales. Almost 3 years later, Apple sells close to 3 million iPhone per month.
It is quite obvious that the all things "i" maker does not plan on taking it slow this time.
The other important device the iPad is compared to and dismissed by Apple as a good product is the netbook. Many Apple haters will be quick to point out that netbooks sell in the tents of millions per year now. How is Apple in any way affecting that? These pundits forget how netbooks started. The first model of PC considered to be a netbook was the Asus Eee PC introduced at the end of October 2007. During the rest of the years it sold just 300,000 units. That is 150,000 per holiday season month.
Granted Asus did does not have the marketing buz of Apple, nor was the economy in recession at that time to influence consumers into buying budget devices. Nevertheless, the iPad has considerably higher price and it started selling during the non spectacular month of March with only US availability. It it widely believed that sales will pick up considerably when:
- production meets demand. Right now, its way bellow:
- the iPad 3G is introduced
- international availability is a fact next month
- Apple negotiates breakthrough 3G deals with international carriers
- enough iPad specific apps populate the App Store
- iPhone OS 4 is available for iPad in the Fall
Clearly Apple has a lot things it can do to increase sales without even touching the price of the product and the iPad is off to a much better start than the nebooks it will eventually kill.
By the way you only need to follow the news to see that already netbooks sales are slowing down considerably. It's is no surprise to me. The iPad is clearly a more capable device.
Oh look, AAPL is up 5% so far today on the news. Another 10% increase and it will pass MSFT (Microsoft) in market cap as the biggest technology company on the planet.
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