“With its competitors unable to field a true iPad rival, Apple’s tablet continues to dominate the market that it created,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD.
“The company sold 11.1 million iPads in the September quarter, accounting for about three quarters of all tablets sold through to consumers,” Paczkowski reports. “And with a true rival yet to emerge, that dominance will likely persist for some time, further reinforced by the upcoming holiday shopping season.”
Paczkowski reports, “Says Canaccord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley, ‘While new entrants such as Amazon could disrupt the completive dynamics into holiday sales, we view low-priced 7-inch models as a threat to other Android OEMs rather than to the iPad’ …It’s looking more and more like Apple’s iPad will follow the same story arc as the iPod, achieving and maintaining market dominance despite its high-end product trappings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve written many times: “The iPod/iPhone/iPad is not the Mac, so stop comparing them… Look at the iPod, not the Mac, to see how this will play out.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
“high-end product trappings” ??? MacBook Air, iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone are all priced at or lower than anything on the market that is similar. All other manufactures are struggling to complete with Apple’s products on price.
But, but when Microsoft comes out with Windows 8!!!
Right now that’s kinda like saying Apple’s share of the Mac market is 100%. The future will be interesting. Apple’s stranglehold will force competitors to be better than they have ever been.
Yep! Either that or they drop off the edge of the earth.
True. But is Apple’s competition even capable of being any better than they are now? Look at what happened with the iPod. Competitors figured they could eat Apple’s lunch by producing a cheaper device and shoving more features into it (remember when every iPod wannabe had an FM tuner?). When that didn’t work, those competitors were lost. They floundered around for awhile, trying to make closer copies and trying different form factors, but eventually most of them just gave up.
Apple’s competition has so far proven itself unable to do anything but copy Apple.
——RM
But… but… Everyone is waiting for Windows 8 tablets so they can get some serious business done. Practically everyone needs to multi-task Microsoft Office Suite on a tablet and use a stylus. Once the Windows 8 tablet goes on sale, Apple’s iPad market share will drop from a questionable 70% to an actual 5% as consumers rush the Microsoft Retail Store demanding $350 Windows 8 tablets from H-P, Dell, Acer and dozens of other Microsoft partners. The overpriced iPad will be forgotten in weeks if not days.
You want a toy tablet to play with, buy the iPad. You want a real man’s business tablet to work with, buy the Windows 8 tablet. Bill Gates dream will be in full effect.
It’s funny how most analysts choose to ignore profits when it comes to Apple products, choosing instead to concentrate on market share, market share mind you based on units shipped and not actually sold. So, the Kindle Fire gets lumped into the tablet category and will be hailed for grabbing market share and Jeff Bezos gets applauded for being a genius. Since when has losing $50 per unit sold been “genius”? There’s a break in Bezos’ logic here. Amazon’s counting on selling their crappy books, movies and music to tight ass consumers wiling to pay only $199 for a tablet. Those people ain’t gonna buy and Amazon’s profits will continue to plummet. Apple has it right with the iPad and are laughing all the way to the bank. Not only are Apple’s consumers willing to pay more for iPads, but they will also be willing to spend more on Apps, movies, music, etc. Look at Amazon’s bottom line every quarter. It blows! This analyst gets it right that the Kindle Fire won’t be a threat to the iPad. It’s just not in the same category. The Fire isn’t more in the same category of the IPad than a cassette player is in the category of an iPod. People should stop comparing them.
Ok, what about the non-returned tablet market? 99%?
Right now, the competition is trying to go head-to-head with Apple’s iPad. Their fake iPads are produced in the millions. When they sit in inventory and do not get sold in significant numbers, there is a desperation fire sale. When the price drops far enough, they eventually get sold. And those money-losing sales count as “units” just like iPads being sold for full asking price.
So even “75% or more” is being generous to the competition. Without the fire sales (tablets sold at a loss), Apple would have “90% or more.” Eventually, the competition will become unwilling to lose money going against iPad directly. They will start only going after the niches that Apple intentionally ignores.
Many analysts predict iPad’s market share will go down. In fact, it will soon go up, as most of the competition simply gives up. The only current non-iPad that has a chance of selling in significant numbers (without a “fire sale”) is Kindle Fire.