“Many who closely watch Apple figured sales would be pretty good, but no one predicted Apple would sell a whopping 7.33 million of the touch-screen tablets during the last three months of 2010, as the company announced last week. That’s close to doubling the number of Macs the company sold during the same time, a fairly amazing feat when you consider the time both have been on the market,” Ogg reports. “The iPad landed in April, while Apple’s been making Macs for more than 25 years.”
“But even though it sells more iPads, Apple still rakes in more money overall on Macs than the touch-screen tablets: $5.4 billion in revenue on desktops and laptops, $4.6 billion from iPads. But at the rate things are going–and with a second iPad coming out in the next few months–it’s not difficult to imagine that very soon Apple will be make more money on iPads than Macs,” Ogg reports. “Now here’s a pesky question: Is that a good thing for Apple if iPad sales somehow eat into Mac sales?”
Ogg reports, “For your average consumer electronics hardware company, this situation could be fairly unnerving… But that’s what sets the folks in Cupertino apart from your average device maker. Apple isn’t just a hardware company. And the iPad (and iPhone and iPod) have been designed to bring in even more revenue in a way the Mac, for now, does not.”
Read more in the full article here.
Didn’t Mac sales INCREASE by like 28%?
So maybe iPads aren’t eating into mac sales rather they are helping sell more Macs via a halo effect?
I am not one of the great thinkers of our time but the numbers suggest this cat is a doofus.
Halo Effect. More iPad sales means an increasing percentage of Mac sales to work with the iPads. Win-win.
The iPad is a New market.
Now some people will completely move to the new market, but the old market is still growing also.
Right now you need a PC (Mac or Win) to sync data to your iPad, so if iPad sales continue to rise, so will Mac sales. In the future I see tablets being autonomous devices ( maybe as we move more to cloud services and computing ).
Eventually, I can see tablets overtaking desktop and laptop sales. I feel the writing is on the wall and Apple sees it too. Apple is not afraid to cannibalize their own products. Its better that they do than the competition.
Jobs hit the nail on the head with the “Cars and Trucks” computer analogy.
I, for one, could never do my job on an iPad. I need a powerful Mac with a minimum of 2 displays (I use 3). And even though iPad apps are becoming more and more powerful, they have a long way to go before they are even close to matching the depth and sophistication of current “power user” software.
Man, I wish people would follow their own logic when they write or at least do some actual research about a company’s sales figures.
I’ve seen lots of people who are given a laptop at work, aspire to own a Mac, but can only afford $500 or so. They have no need for a second cheapo PC, but can’t yet afford a MacBook. The iPad is there to fill the gap.
milk the mac for all it is worth an get on to The Next Big Thing.
“Apple isn’t just a hardware company.”
The hardware is where the lion’s share of the profits come from.
The software / iTunes / iLife / iWork is to help sell the hardware.
“Jobs hit the nail on the head with the “Cars and Trucks” computer analogy.” Agree. I’ve already got the “truck” – my 2008 iMac, as well as an iPod touch (motorcycle?), and can’t wait to buy my sports car (2nd gen’ iPad).
The issue of cannibalization came up in last week’s financial conference. Apple said there may have been some, but Mac sales still grew – the kind of cannibalization most companies would kill for. Where the iPad is really eating into sales is competitors’ products – net-books especially, but cheap laptops as well.
@ macbones,
At least Steve had a better plan than Mickey Dell.
Apple even admitted in their conference call last week that the iPad is probably cannibalizing some Mac sales.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Apple might drop workstations… And that would be a very sad thing…….. :.-(
I have both iPad and Mac (two Macs actually – Mac Mini and Macbook Pro). I like the iPad for some things, but prefer the Mac for others. Writing anything on the iPad is a pain – even with a wireless keyboard (no mouse – so long-arm touches on the screen are required, and this is clumsy for fine editing). Browsing is a painful process if you are used to tabbed browsing – all that opening and closing of windows is so slow… Using Mail is ok for simply reading new mail – but it is painful to try to find anything (no sort, no group by unread etc etc).
Horses for courses… For many, the iPad will be perfect. For me it is useful for travelling…
Anyway, didn’t the iPod overtake Mac revenues? The Mac survived…
> What happens when Apple’s iPad outsells the Mac…(?)
The same thing that happened when iPhone outsold Mac, both in terms of unit sales and revenue. The Mac business just takes advantage of the success and influence of other Apple products (such as iPod, iPhone, and iPad) and keeps growing steadily each year. It’s been dubbed the “halo effect.”
Apple’s Mac business will continue to outgrow the rest of the PC market for the foreseeable future. The primary reason is because Macs are more desirable compared to the collective of Windows options. And since Windows still has about 90% share, THAT is a lot of untapped potential, ripe for the Mac expansion.
Because of iPod, iPhone, and iPad, more and more consumers are AT LEAST considering a Mac. Before (ten years ago), Apple was not even on the list of potential choices for most consumers. That’s the difference… “consideration.” Once there is consideration, a significant percentage will decide to “get a Mac.”
Jobs already covered this: cars and trucks, remember?
When iPads start to outsell macs you just build the same technology and usability into macs and upsell upsell upsell !!!! Who wouldn’t buy an iMac that has the same quality touch interface, desktop specs and solid state storage just with a much larger screen ???
Once you have the world hooked on your tech its not hard to sell them the whole set.
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Answer… sell more Macs
If mac was a majority of pc sales, the ipad could eat into the mac’s market share at the consumer level.
I could see it cutting into the upgrade cycle for existing mac non-professional users. I’m perfectly satisfied with my aluminum macbook’s performance for schlepping around the internet. Love my 3g iPad. But if a gee-whiz v2 of the ipad came out this year, I’d seriously consider an upgrade. Macbook, not so much.
There’s a lot of room for the mac to expand in the pc world before this even starts to becomes a problem for Apple.
Both iPad and the Mac will continue to grow. While iPad will outstrip the Mac in sales, the Mac will be eating the PC’s lunch at a faster rate than before. In other word, it’s a happy jeopardy for Apple.
I’m hoping the ipad will evolve into more of a mac rather then replace it.
if it does (which it won’t) i’ll eat my hat then build my own m6502 computer to use instead