> A5 is useless unless you
want to make money selling them inside iPads:
Apple May Have Sold 500,000 IPad 2 Tablets on Debut Weekend, Analyst Says
bloomberg.com
(EXCERPT)
Early estimates suggest demand for iPads remains buoyant even as competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. enter the tablet market. Apple sold more than 300,000 units of the first iPad in the 24 hours after its April debut.
“IPads are sold out across virtually all channels,” Munster said in the research note. “We were unable to find any availability.”
Munster said Apple will probably surpass his early prediction that 5.5 million iPads would be sold this quarter, which ends this month. Munster, based in Minneapolis, said that 70 percent of the customers surveyed by his team were first-time iPad buyers, signaling Apple is expanding its user base.
Apple may have sold three times as many iPad 2s in the debut as the first iPad, according to Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research. All of the handful of Best Buy stores surveyed by Global Equities sold out of the iPad in four minutes, Chowdhry wrote.
102 Tablets In Works (101 aren't making money)
Through December, Apple had sold 14.8 million iPads, generating $9.6 billion in sales, making it one of the fastest- selling consumer-electronic devices in history.
Rivals including Motorola Mobility, Samsung Electronics Co., Research In Motion Ltd. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are introducing tablet computers to compete with the iPad. Overall, there are 102 tablets from 64 makers either on sale or in development, according to consulting firm PRTM.
On March 11, hundreds of people lined up at the Fifth Avenue store in New York. Store workers handed out free hot chocolate and water to those waiting.
“I’m a student, and I hate carrying my laptop to school. It’s like five pounds and the iPad is a lot lighter,” said Jay Narang, 19, a sophomore at Baruch College. “I was going to get the first one, but I knew they were going to come out with one with cameras, so why not just wait?”
Francis Degode, 44, lives outside of Brussels and said he came to New York for the release because it would take too long to get one at home. Degode got in line at 6 a.m. in the rain on March 11 to get his first iPad. |
