Posted on 02/12/2013 7:41:50 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The strength of Apple's iPad business is collapsing as lower priced, smaller tablets eat into sales, says Citi's Apple analysts in a new note this morning.
The 9.7-inch iPad's unit sales were only up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter, says Citi, citing IDC data. In developed markets like the U.S. and Japan, unit sales were actually down quite a bit.
The bigger iPad is being replaced by Apple's iPad Mini, as well as the 7-inch tablets sold by Samsung and Amazon. According to IDC, Apple has 38.8% of the tablet market, which is industry leading, but is down from its peak of 56.8% in the second quarter of last year. Amazon has 15.5% of the market, and Samsung has 13.1% of the market.
As the smaller tablets take share, the average selling price of a tablet is going to fall. We saw this last quarter for Apple as the average selling price for the iPad was $467 compared to $535 the quarter before.
As the selling price collapses, Apple's profits are going to fall. And therefore, Apple's spectacular revenue and EPS growth of the last few years are going to slow down considerably.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Jobs’ claim to fame was creating devices that dumbed down the experience of using technology while making the person using it feel smart.
What next? Disposable mini-pads?
Am I reading something incorrectly? Apple’s tablet (read iPad) sales grew - yes?
Okay, give me a timeline of something revolutionary every 2 years. I think it was a lot more spaced out than that, and that this kind of hyper-expectation is what's causing a lot of the "DOOMED, DOOMED I TELL YOU" Apple articles. (That, and contrarian writers who have to take the minority view on everything.)
BY my count, Apple had the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010. That's an average of 4.5 years between "revolutions". Am I missing one in there?
Even Apple, who is bringing a small amount of manufacturing jobs back to the US is, I suspect, only doing it as a PR move to eventually get the political favors it needs to return foreign profits to the US without being punitively taxed on it.
I think this may be a case where everybody who wanted one bought one already.
They’re way past 100 million.
By the "rules" of FR, they're both taboo.
Apple of course is run by a gay guy.
And Microsoft domos were "all in" on the Wash State gay marriage campaign.
It's LINUX or nothing, LOL.
LOL!
Yes, but not very much, and especially not when compared with their rivals.
Apple’s prices are just too high for what they offer. You can get comparable equipment for about half the price.
Hmmm... closest competitor is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Galaxy Note 32GB from Amazon.com = $549.99
Apple iPad “Retina Display” 32GB = $599 (has significantly better screen)
Apple iPad 16GB WiFi+3G, similar screen resolution, slightly slower processor = $399.
Hmmm...
Galaxy Tab 2 (7”) 8GB memory = $199
Apple iPad Mini 16GB = $329 (slightly higher resolution and larger screen, twice the memory).
Still not the “half the price” claim.
You can get a google Nexus, the equivalent of the 16 GB ipad for just 199.
Very well put. Apple’s strength in its bottom line has come from increasing its margins in a technology market which has the same markup as bananas (as I’ve seen it put). That was made possible by having hardware and OS integration under one roof; by having ‘just right’ products; by careful planning and thinking things through (unlike the many morons who said the MacBook Air was useless because it had no disk drives and one couldn’t burn a DVD on it); and by not only moving production to China, but maintaining quality in manufacturing. Chinese engineering samples are great, but production always has people in charge who are ignorantly shaving things here and there to pocket the difference, thus making second-rate or defective products.
So, Apple has spent over a decade building in a series of different places in the Far East, while shifting into some more commonplace technology (like the shift into IDE drives as they became better quality; dropping Firewire despite higher performance; jumping from PPC architecture to Intel) and improving its bottom line, while expanding market share, and increasing capability while lowering prices. No one else has managed to do that, and it leaves Apple with a massive amount of cash on hand to basically kick the living crap out of anyone who tries to take them on.
I’m amused how the higher-end Intel chips that Apple had an exclusive on for its notebooks — in part Intel agreed to that because it kept their efforts at ramping production from driving them to the brink, what with Apple’s smaller market share — and that now that it no longer does, the “high end” premium Wintel laptops don’t actually match A’s specs, but still have that nice pricetag.
Unlike what a bunch of people said up there, Jobs’ vision was great — but IMV only when one doesn’t look at his failures; and his oddball, stubborn quirkiness no longer has a hand on the wheel, so Apple’s product lines, in particular its new product lines, will continue to take us by surprise, and capture the attention and the shopper dollars.
According to IDC, Apple has 38.8% of the tablet market, which is industry leading, but is down from its peak of 56.8% in the second quarter of last year. Amazon has 15.5% of the market, and Samsung has 13.1% of the market... As the selling price collapses, Apple's profits are going to fall. And therefore, Apple's spectacular revenue and EPS growth of the last few years are going to slow down considerably.And in an amazing turn in the history of business, Apple is the ONLY company which will be hurt by that. /s
“Which is why, I think, that apple cult members can be so annoying.”
No truer words . . .
If I had to own only one machine right now, I would keep my desktop running Windows XP, but the tablets come in handy, I have an Android, too.
I paid $250 for the Google Nexus 7 with 32GB. Because it is backed by Google, it gets the latest Android updates.
I think the market for tablets is only going to get stronger. As prices come down and capabilities increase, people will replace older units with newer ones. It's been about 14 year since I got my first Palm pda. It's since been replaced by two subsequent Palm pdas and now an iPod Touch. Each pda had better screens and more capability. I always have it in my purse. While I can surf the internet or read a book on my iPod Touch, it's a lot easier to do on my Nexus 7. But having a 7" tablet does not preclude me from buying a full size tablet. I'm seriously thinking about that too.
And what child does not want to have his/her own tablet? Every day a child gets their first tablet. It may just be Mom's hand-me-down, but that means that Mom is buying a new one.
Apple has more competition than ever before, but I think the tablet market is really going to boom with new entries in the coming years.
OK. That’s fine. Enjoy the “Google Experience” (aka - invasion of privacy).
But all sarcasm aside- One would think that the Google Nexus line would have taken off and already passed the Kindle HD, and Samsung Tablet offerings if it were so great. Seems the price point is “right”.
In browsing reviews - many people seem to like the Nexus line, but there are also a lot of reports of poor quality/workmanship and lots of defects. Probably has something to do with the plastic case.
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