Survey: Apple’s iPad mini creates more demand than it cannibalizes

“Now that the iPad mini has arrived at market and is evidently selling well, there’s no doubt that the original iPad will suffer some cannibalization by its smaller sibling,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD. “But, according to a survey from Cowen and Co., it may turn out to be minor, if not outright inconsequential.”

“Of the 1,225 U.S. adults Cowen surveyed, 12 percent said they planned to purchase an iPad mini in the next 18 months, and of those, 52 percent said they’d never owned a tablet before,” Paczkowski reports. “More interesting still, of the survey respondents who said they planned to purchase an iPad mini, just 16.6 percent said they intended it as a replacement for another device, and of those, 29 percent said the gadget to be replaced was an iPad (13 percent said that device to be replaced was a Kindle Fire, and 42 percent a Windows PC).”

Paczkowski reports, “In other words, few consumers are buying an iPad mini as an iPad replacement. And, more importantly, for many buyers, the iPad mini is their first tablet.”

Read more in the full article here.

15 Comments

      1. Because of the higher pixels per square inch of the iPad mini over the iPad 2, I don’t think the iPad mini needs a true retina display. I don’t think iPad mini will get a retina display as dense as the iPad 3/4 anytime in the near future.

    1. I have an iPad 2 and am looking around to get a mini although no one seems to have one in stock. The Retina is great but I don’t need it and don’t like the fact that the 3 and 4 are actually heavier than the 2. I’ll get the mini to see if this really will be my main iPad. When the Retina version of the mini comes out, I’ll pass the first one down to my son. But Apple better not make it any heavier… To me, as I travel in dense cities in Asia and Europe a lot on foot by mass transit, every ounce matters and that is more important than the Retina.

  1. Some of those cannibalized iOS devices are the iPods. We use to call that upgrading to a new larger more expensive iOS device.

    The real question is, if you are going to buy any devices this Christmas and holiday season, “Who manufacturers the devices you will be buying?”

  2. I own an iPad 3rd gen and would not have upgraded to th 4th gen even without the mini. I did, however, buy a mini. What I will buy in the future will depend most on retina display, followed by weight and thinness.

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