“It’s been a gloomy holiday season for tablet makers — unless, that is, you are Apple, Amazon or Barnes & Noble,” Brian X. Chen blogs for The New York Times.
“The stories of tablets hitting the market and failing to sell are piling up. This week, Dell discontinued its Streak 7 tablet, after the death of the Streak 5 in August due to poor sales. The move marks Dell’s departure from the tablet market in the United States, at least for now,” Chen reports. “And last week, Research in Motion said it would take a $485 million write-down related to poor sales of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. A financial analyst estimated that RIM had 1.4 million unsold BlackBerry tablets left in its inventory. Then of course there is Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad tablet, which was pulled off shelves after 48 days, followed by a fire sale of the device for just $100, down from $500.”
“Why is it so hard to make a successful tablet? Companies are failing for the same reasons that a string of tablet devices flopped before the iPad came to market, says Sarah Rotman-Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research. Lack of content and capability are the key reasons,” Chen reports. “‘It’s the same story as it has been from the beginning,’ Ms. Rotman-Epps said. ‘They’re all trying to sell tablets as if they were PCs. Verizon marketed all these tablets with 4G and gigabytes of storage. What consumers care about is what they can do with the device.’
Chen reports, “Meanwhile, Apple made roughly 42 million of the 58 million tablets sold worldwide in 2011, according to estimates by Gartner, a market research firm… Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s tablet numbers are not shaping up to be nearly as big as Apple’s iPad sales, but all three devices can succeed on different scales, Ms. Rotman-Epps said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Whit D.” for the heads up.]
Got my iPad two days ago. Once you own one you realize how much of a game changer it is.
One of my coworkers said he loves his and I said “I didn’t know you had an iPad”. To which he replied, “Oh, well its a Samsung, but that’s the same thing.”
lol
Did you educate him by smashing his face in?
hahahahaha
some people are just too stupid to be allowed to live
I have to admit, I snickered at that. : (
Actually, it’s not so funny when you think about it, this guy (who calls his Samsung the same thing as an iPad) would be a good witness for Apple. Samsung is clearly taking advantage of the similarity in looks of the iPad in trying to sell their devices. They need to be shutdown. period.
+100500.
remember during the Samsung vs Apple court case when the judged held up the two devices and asked the Samsung lawyer to identify which is which he couldn’t.
Actually, the lawyer was a *she*, but yeah…
Poor guy. Make sure you keep your iPad away from him.
Better yet, let him try your iPad.
He’ll quickly become an anti-Samsung evangelist. (If he’s lucky, he can still return the Samsung.)
“The move marks Dell’s departure from the tablet market in the United States, at least for now.”
This reminds me of articles about their exit from the portable music player market (the DJ or Diddy or whatever).
Dell: unlike the PC market, where your “good enough” tech at a low price provided an entry into a market of expensive devices, you have no such advantage here. First, tablets are already at a good price point. The best in class iPad 2 can be purchased for $499. Second, consumers have not shown the inclination to buy “good enough” tablets in relevant quantities. You would be better served acting as a vendor for other crappy tablets. It would save the “development” and manufacturing costs.
Well, frankly there have not yet been any “good enough” tablets offered at a significantly lower price point than the iPad. Now that the Android tablet market is saturated, this may be changing. Also, Android’s newest version, Ice Cream Sandwich, looks to improve the tablet experience and drastically improve the number of apps available for Android tablets. So I do see the Android tablet market picking up over the coming months. But they’re way behind Apple now, and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. And there just isn’t room for all the wanna be vendors. Many more of them will bite the dust in the tablet arena. My prediction for the survivors are B&N and Amazon on the low end, and Samsung and Asus on the high end. Perhaps a few others will figure it out too, but based on past performance I’m not so sure.
btw, I did order an Android tablet to test the waters. I found a new Asus Transformer for $289 and couldn’t resist. Asus has promised to upgrade this tablet to Ice Cream Sandwich. Hardware wise, it’s more comparable to the original iPad than the iPad2, so it’s not the “latest and greatest”, but we shall see what kind of a tablet experience it can deliver.
“btw, I did order an Android tablet to test the waters”
You only encourage them. Bad idea.
Bloodbath!
Rock on Apple!
The article should read ‘Apple SOLD 42 million of the 58 million tablets SHIPPED in 2011.’
1
And even that “58 million” shipped is pure fantasy since every major manufacturer was a failure and even Samsung sold just like three million tablets in this whole year.
All the other no name “tablets” are not really accountable. So this figure is fantasy about what sales “must have been”.
We all know that Apple has made a heap of money from iPads and that some rival companies have lost huge amounts by trying to enter the tablet market. Does anybody know of just one single company other than Apple that has actually declared a profit from selling tablet computers ?
Mosestech Inc..
LMAO! Yeah, those tablets have even been more profitable than the iPad. 😉
And they have only 10 apps…
He said profits, not prophets.
These new tablets will be DOA: Dead on arrival. “Sounds like lots of fun ahead.” – S. Jobs
They said the iPad won’t sell :
http://aaplinvestors.net/stats/ipad/ipaddeathwatch/
“Why is it so hard to make a successful tablet?” says Sarah Rotman-Epps
I could tell you, but I shan’t.
It’s all part of the ‘secret sauce’.
Just enjoy your iPad.
“Merry Christmas Johnny! We got you a wannabe OtherPad! Isn’t that exiting?!”
“Frack you mom and dad! I hope you saved the receipt.” 😛