Analyst: Rivals Will Fall to iPad Mini
By Aabha Rathee | More Articles - November 05, 2012
Apple’s ( NASDAQ:AAPL) strategically timed launch of the iPad mini ahead of the holiday shopping
season will pay off, according to one analyst. KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo estimated that 8.2 million units of the
smaller Apple tablet will sell during the December-ending quarter, with 850,000 of those coming in the
device’s first week of sales.
Kuo based his estimates on supply chain checks and logistical factors such as transportation, AppleInsider
said. According to the analyst, if mass production of the tablet had started earlier than mid-October, Apple
could have seen higher first-week shipments. However, since the company only managed to produce about
950,000 units prior to launch, as mentioned in shipment quotes from Apple’s online store, early shipment
figures will be restrained.
Kuo does expect Apple to eventually fix the supply issues and predicts the 7.9-inch device to be the leader
of the mid-size tablet market in the quarter. According to Kuo, iPad mini shipments will grow 11 percent
month-to-month to reach 8.2 million over the quarter.
In contrast, sales of Amazon’s ( NASDAQ:AMZN) Kindle Fire HD and Google’s( NASDAQ:GOOG) Nexus 7
will see respective month-to-month declines of 47 percent and 52 percent to see total quarterly sales of 4.5
million and 1.9 million respectively. The reason for that, according to Kuo, is that shipments momentum has
dropped for both tablets and Amazon’s 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is seeing additional production problems.
Amazon has forecast that shipments of its seven-inch tablet will reach 6 million in the fourth quarter.
The iPad mini was available for pre-orders on Friday, October 26, and sold out over the course of the first
weekend. The Wi-Fi version of the device went on sale in stores of 34 countries on Friday, November 2, but
LTE-equipped devices will not ship until later this month.
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