Mini takes lead in US iPad sales as iPad Pro jumps in at 12 percent, survey data says
The split of U.S. iPad sales is now weighted in favor of the iPad mini, although the iPad Pro captured a "meaningful" 12 percent share during the December quarter, according to a survey compiled by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
While the iPad Air 2 remained the best-selling individual iPad model during the period, both Air generations comprised just 40 percent of units sold overall, CIRP said. The Mini segment made a major leap forward year-over-year from 32 to 47 percent.
The low-cost Mini 2 from 2013 was the most popular Mini model, followed by last year's Mini 4. The Mini 3 took home just a fraction of sales, presumably because the product is effectively a Mini 2 with Touch ID and a gold color option.
The CIRP data may suggest that the Pro is off to a strong start, in spite of the cheapest model selling for $799 before accessories like a case, an Apple Pencil, or a Smart Keyboard. The firm surveyed 500 U.S. shoppers who bought Apple devices between October and December.
iPad sales have, however, been on an overall decline for several quarters. The exact causes are unknown, though typically this has been blamed on the rise of "phablets" like the iPhone 6s Plus, which are big enough to handle some tablet duties -- like reading and video -- while also serving as a phone.
People looking to save money might therefore just buy a phone and a laptop, especially since MacBooks continue to have advantages like a built-in keyboard, a user-accessible file system, and more powerful apps.
While the iPad Air 2 remained the best-selling individual iPad model during the period, both Air generations comprised just 40 percent of units sold overall, CIRP said. The Mini segment made a major leap forward year-over-year from 32 to 47 percent.
The low-cost Mini 2 from 2013 was the most popular Mini model, followed by last year's Mini 4. The Mini 3 took home just a fraction of sales, presumably because the product is effectively a Mini 2 with Touch ID and a gold color option.
The CIRP data may suggest that the Pro is off to a strong start, in spite of the cheapest model selling for $799 before accessories like a case, an Apple Pencil, or a Smart Keyboard. The firm surveyed 500 U.S. shoppers who bought Apple devices between October and December.
iPad sales have, however, been on an overall decline for several quarters. The exact causes are unknown, though typically this has been blamed on the rise of "phablets" like the iPhone 6s Plus, which are big enough to handle some tablet duties -- like reading and video -- while also serving as a phone.
People looking to save money might therefore just buy a phone and a laptop, especially since MacBooks continue to have advantages like a built-in keyboard, a user-accessible file system, and more powerful apps.
Comments
That chart is unnecessarily confusing in terms of tracking form factor preferences though. For the purpose of that preference, whether someone has a new iPad or an old iPad doesn't matter at all. At the least, there should be a second chart that just breaks out the form factor only, and why a bar chart anyway? This data is what pie charts were made for.
On the flip side, I'm hanging onto to my 2011 MacBook Air and will wait to purchase the next iteration of the 128 GB iPad mini/cellular. I really don't need to cart around a laptop. The MBA is thin and light, but not nearly as much as an iPad mini. The iPad Air, however thin and light, still is unwieldy. I have an Office 365 subscription and heavily use iCloud Drive, which will allow me to do "real work" on Windows desktops at my offices.
That's about $1.5 billion in sales for the iPad Pro and I think that is the low side.
1) the iPhone 6 Plus does what I need from a tablet
2) I only use a tablet for surfing the web and watching movies at home, so I don't need an upgrade to do that
3) it doesn't run __________ app and therefore doesn't replace my computer/laptop
4) I already have an iPad and it still works great
The last one is my reason.
I expect revenue from Ipad pro to be about 2B.
The 12" rMB has an Intel Core M CPU, not Atom. It has much better performance compared to Intel's Atom but still nothing compared to what's in the MBA
I think the real issue is that there is so little difference between the models and not enough innovation around what the device can/cannot do. For instance Apple came out with it's first keyboard case and it's first stylus this year, essentially the sixth generation. It's arguable that keyboard cases and third party styluses are some of the greatest drivers affecting iPad sales, yet Apple has waited all this time to even dip a toe in. It also took four years for them to reduce the bezels, and now they've left them alone for a further two years.
The key to iPad sales is adding features which make the devices useful for actual WORK. As long as the predominant use for iPads is leisure, the iPad will never be a serious device and people won't refresh them until they actually drop it on the kitchen floor one day. You can see that Apple has realised this by the fact that they are finally (after all these years) trying to do this exact thing.
Personally, I'd like to see an iPad mini that's narrower, that you can actually pick up and hold in one hand like all the advertising material says you can (but you can't). Changing the bezels so they have the same side to top ratio as an iPhone would be a good first step. This would make the side bezels about half as wide and it would still be just as useable. Changing the edge form to match iPhone 6 style rounded edges would make it far easier to pick up one-handed as well.
Maybe this is the natural evolution. People do real pro work on their blazingly fast laptops with always more processor power, unlimited networking, connectivity and storage options. No one can question them for not choosing the iPad.
It is when they become fully productive with their laptops and they master every intricacy of their pro software, their cloud and not-so-cloud storage and networking that they'll think maybe they need...
.. the iPad.
So stop lamenting on the shortcomings of the iPad and go buy a MBP 15 Retina, the big one with discrete GPU... It will buy you time until your eventual hug with the iPad...
And precisely HOW do you "save money" with that godawful data service bill that rolls in every month to the tune of thousands of dollars of total operating costs over and above the hardware? NONE of which you pay with an iPad. Any phone costs thousands of dollars more than any tablet once the service bills are figured in.
In any event I'm one that has kept my iPad for longer than I expected. Part of that is due to it being good enough and part due to Apple screwing with customers and not moving the hardware forward fast enough. I'm looking at RAM and Flash here hardware wise. Software wise I'm not sure Apple gets it yet, iCloud sucks as does managing documents on the devices. IOS as it currently is will never replace a Mac.
If she's fine with an iPad 3, the current MacBook is fine. It's as fast as your 2011 MacBook Air (actually faster, since the storage and memory are faster). The Skylake MacBook should be coming soon, but Apple did just start offering last year's model refurbished. I have a MacBook and it even runs Windows 10 in Parallels just fine for basic tasks like Quicken.