"Apple's tablet market share took a hit as consumers "sat out" the third quarter in anticipation of the iPad Mini, analyst firm IDC said. Android tablets made gains as a result."
I think this means that because many Apple buyers sat on the sidelines the overall pie was smaller. So this had a magnifying effect on Android's overall share of the market. Otherwise it's kind of an illogical statement.
Well, I consider myself a 'normal' consumer and I was waiting for an ipad mini and I think you consider that a proof (of sorts). I don't think its much of a leap in logic to work out that a lot (hundreds of thousands...millions even) were waiting off for something like a smaller ipad. I mean it was in practically every technology blog prior to announcement.
Do 'normal' consumers even read technology blogs? And most certainly somebody posting on HN does not qualify as a 'normal consumer' when it comes to technology purchases.
It wasn't even technology blogs per say, they were talking about it in the Guardian and BBC online. It was rumor for months and spreading by word of mouth. My granny was talking about getting one before it was actually released and she doesn't have a clue what a blog is, she found out from friends at the bowls. True story :)
This sure is a pretty boring post. I guess what I'm trying to say is, "So?" This is hardly news worthy, just run of the mill update that comes at delegated intervals in the business world.
In 2Q 2012, Apple sold 17M out of 25M total (68%).
In 3Q 2012, Apple sold 14M out of 27.8M total (50%).
To not lose market share and maintain that 68%, Apple would have had to sell 30MM out of 43.8MM, more than double what they did sell. If they had just repeated the 2Q numbers, they would have had 55% share.
So the idea that the market share decrease was due to Apple buyers sitting out in anticipation of the mini seems rather misguided. Non-Apple went from 8MM to 13.8MM in one quarter.
Agreed. The key factor would seem to be more, better and cheaper competition both in terms of direct competition (other 10" tablets) and similar but slightly different products (7" tablets such as the Fire and the Nexus 7).
I'd expect that the iPad Mini will have some positive impact for Apple (some of those looking at smaller and / or cheaper tablets will find it appealing) but there will also be a negative effect from the continuing improvements in the iPad's competitors, especially as the Android tablet ecosystem improves.
Essentially we seem to be heading to the place most sensible people predicted a couple of years back - a few big players sharing a market rather than a single one owning it.
I see a lot of people still thinking that Android is going to crush the iPad but I don't see why this would be.
20 years ago Windows crushed the Mac because that was the only easy way to interact with someone - to use the same OS and the same programmes. Today people will be reading this on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don't get why anyone thinks, in an era where the desktop OS is more diverse than it's ever been, why tablets would standardise on a single OS.
It seems more natural that the natural state of affairs will be diversity and if that's the case so long as Apple keep making tablets people like, the iPad will continue to thrive.
For those who say Apple can't compete on low margin, high volume, I'd suggest that they have just so far chosen not to as they've been able to go high margin, high volume.
Right now Apple have the highest margins on hardware (perhaps the only margins on hardware) but also have the biggest music sales network, one of the biggest digital video sales / rental networks and a digital book sales network. It may be that to stay competitive in the game they have to sacrifice some of the up front revenue but remember they are still very able to compete on the media sales stuff that comprises pretty much all of Amazon's business model and a fair portion of Google's.
The only thing that seems certain to me is that we as consumers are going to do well out of the competition, the rest is up for grabs and I suspect will be for many years to come.
Some of it may be but coming into the holiday season that may be people converting iPad sales to iPad mini sales and buying early in anticipation of shortages.
Probably won't know until they publish their Q4 figures in a few months time.
I made the same mistake in the discussion thread of a different article. That three million number is the combined total of all new wifi iPad products for those three days. Most likely they also include the pre-orders as well, which is slightly misleading.
Surprising, but, not so surprising. Surprising because the iPad is supposedly a a very good tablet. Not so surprised because Apple has lost its magic, which is expected, since Steve is no longer with us. (Admit it - The iPhone 5 IS a disappointment). I have never been a great fan of Apple nor the iPad. But I do have to admit that the iPad is a really good tablet in all fairness. At the same time, Android is evolving so fast that it's only a matter of time I guess, till they overthrow Apple. So, in a way, it's not so surprising.
Why would I admit it? It is better than iPhone4s in every sense. And where I am Google powered maps app never had transit data (and I have no need for it) so getting turn-by-turn navigation was a big plus without any loses.
iPhone 4S was announced a day before Jobs' death. Which do you think is more plausible: that they only started working on iPhone 5 on October 6, 2012; or what they had all the basics of iPhone 5 already in place?
Jobs probably gave his blessings to iPhone 6 before passing away.
The iPhone 5 was hyped by the media in every possible sense. It was projected to be some kind of a super-phone. Some even speculated it to have a mini projector, laser-keyboard and what not. But now, all it has is just a few inches of extra screen size and a slightly upgraded dual-core processor, while the rest of its competitors have had super-fast quad-core chips with higher clock speed and larger screen sizes for a while already.
> The iPhone 5 was hyped by the media in every possible sense.
So was the iPhone, and the iPad, and the iPhone 4, and the 4S, and the iPad mini, and basically every Apple product ever. This isn't new.
> It was projected to be some kind of a super-phone.
By who? Your local news station? Nobody with any sense made that prediction.
> Some even speculated it to have a mini projector, laser-keyboard and what not.
Random analysts and tech enthusiasts figured that Apple would randomly switch gears to gimmicky half baked features that nobody else has shipped yet instead of using the years of actual information at their disposal that shows Apple iterates over constantly overhauling?
Yeah real surprising.
> while the rest of its competitors have had super-fast quad-core chips with higher clock speed
You know nothing about the topic you're talking about. The iPhone 5 A6 processor benches faster than most Android tablets and the GPU outstrips all Mali GPUs and the Tegra 3. Meanwhile "super-fast quad core chip" has so little meaning it might as well just be a marketing term.
What in the hell are you talking about? Way to completely derail a discussion.
EDIT - Oh I see, you're also the guy who thinks open source wins everything because Android is doing well right now. I honestly hadn't noticed. I just see a dumb comment and pounce, I hadn't looked at the username for either comment until just now.
However if I'm bothering you frequently, that's not a good sign. It means you're spouting a bunch of ridiculous BS with little to no evidence or point. Try to avoid that in the future, and trust me you'll never see my name again.
Continue to and you almost certainly will. I don't check usernames, I just reply.
EDIT - I just have to add that I love that two comment replies to you four days apart counts as sexualized stalking. Either you're the biggest prude in history, extremely paranoid, or possibly just not as quick witted as you thought.
One thing is definitely true: a year ago the phrase, "...but it's not really a tablet market, it's an iPad market" was so often used as to become annoying. I haven't heard that phrase in a few months.
Oh yeah, I remember all those articles from people who said that the iPad market is exactly like the iPod market. But I knew then too that it was not true. Two things are different which change the game entirely.
First, when the iPod appeared, the whole ecosystem wasn't really about the "OS" of the device, and now iOS has a real competitor in Android, that a lot of other manufacturers can use, while back then there was no such unification from the other manufacturers. This matters because the iPod was a single-task product, while tablets are not.
Second, they said that Apple has its own stores, while the others do not. But we're living in a global market now, and Apple's stores are virtually non-existent outside of US. Having 1 or 5 stores in a whole country doesn't make much of a difference. So even if Android tablets completely fail in US, there's a huge market out there for them, outside of US, which is bound to become bigger than the whole "iPad market".
Another important thing to consider is the content that drives the two platforms. If you didn't buy any music from the iTunes store and just ripped stuff from CDs/Napster/Limewire/Kazaa, all the music that worked on your iPod worked on your non-Apple music player as well.
Such is not the case with apps. If you've spent a few hundred dollars on apps over the course of a few years using iOS devices, the cost to switch (assuming you care about continuing to use any of those apps once you're on Android) is pretty high.
26 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 63.6 ms ] threadI think this means that because many Apple buyers sat on the sidelines the overall pie was smaller. So this had a magnifying effect on Android's overall share of the market. Otherwise it's kind of an illogical statement.
In 2Q 2012, Apple sold 17M out of 25M total (68%).
In 3Q 2012, Apple sold 14M out of 27.8M total (50%).
To not lose market share and maintain that 68%, Apple would have had to sell 30MM out of 43.8MM, more than double what they did sell. If they had just repeated the 2Q numbers, they would have had 55% share.
So the idea that the market share decrease was due to Apple buyers sitting out in anticipation of the mini seems rather misguided. Non-Apple went from 8MM to 13.8MM in one quarter.
(Here's the 2Q2012 numbers: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23632512)
I'd expect that the iPad Mini will have some positive impact for Apple (some of those looking at smaller and / or cheaper tablets will find it appealing) but there will also be a negative effect from the continuing improvements in the iPad's competitors, especially as the Android tablet ecosystem improves.
Essentially we seem to be heading to the place most sensible people predicted a couple of years back - a few big players sharing a market rather than a single one owning it.
I see a lot of people still thinking that Android is going to crush the iPad but I don't see why this would be.
20 years ago Windows crushed the Mac because that was the only easy way to interact with someone - to use the same OS and the same programmes. Today people will be reading this on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don't get why anyone thinks, in an era where the desktop OS is more diverse than it's ever been, why tablets would standardise on a single OS.
It seems more natural that the natural state of affairs will be diversity and if that's the case so long as Apple keep making tablets people like, the iPad will continue to thrive.
For those who say Apple can't compete on low margin, high volume, I'd suggest that they have just so far chosen not to as they've been able to go high margin, high volume.
Right now Apple have the highest margins on hardware (perhaps the only margins on hardware) but also have the biggest music sales network, one of the biggest digital video sales / rental networks and a digital book sales network. It may be that to stay competitive in the game they have to sacrifice some of the up front revenue but remember they are still very able to compete on the media sales stuff that comprises pretty much all of Amazon's business model and a fair portion of Google's.
The only thing that seems certain to me is that we as consumers are going to do well out of the competition, the rest is up for grabs and I suspect will be for many years to come.
On the other hand, Apple just announced selling 3 million iPad minis this weekend so it looks as though there was some pent-up demand: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11/apple-says-first-weeken...
Probably won't know until they publish their Q4 figures in a few months time.
So was the iPhone, and the iPad, and the iPhone 4, and the 4S, and the iPad mini, and basically every Apple product ever. This isn't new.
> It was projected to be some kind of a super-phone.
By who? Your local news station? Nobody with any sense made that prediction.
> Some even speculated it to have a mini projector, laser-keyboard and what not.
Random analysts and tech enthusiasts figured that Apple would randomly switch gears to gimmicky half baked features that nobody else has shipped yet instead of using the years of actual information at their disposal that shows Apple iterates over constantly overhauling?
Yeah real surprising.
> while the rest of its competitors have had super-fast quad-core chips with higher clock speed
You know nothing about the topic you're talking about. The iPhone 5 A6 processor benches faster than most Android tablets and the GPU outstrips all Mali GPUs and the Tegra 3. Meanwhile "super-fast quad core chip" has so little meaning it might as well just be a marketing term.
EDIT - Oh I see, you're also the guy who thinks open source wins everything because Android is doing well right now. I honestly hadn't noticed. I just see a dumb comment and pounce, I hadn't looked at the username for either comment until just now.
However if I'm bothering you frequently, that's not a good sign. It means you're spouting a bunch of ridiculous BS with little to no evidence or point. Try to avoid that in the future, and trust me you'll never see my name again.
Continue to and you almost certainly will. I don't check usernames, I just reply.
EDIT - I just have to add that I love that two comment replies to you four days apart counts as sexualized stalking. Either you're the biggest prude in history, extremely paranoid, or possibly just not as quick witted as you thought.
First, when the iPod appeared, the whole ecosystem wasn't really about the "OS" of the device, and now iOS has a real competitor in Android, that a lot of other manufacturers can use, while back then there was no such unification from the other manufacturers. This matters because the iPod was a single-task product, while tablets are not.
Second, they said that Apple has its own stores, while the others do not. But we're living in a global market now, and Apple's stores are virtually non-existent outside of US. Having 1 or 5 stores in a whole country doesn't make much of a difference. So even if Android tablets completely fail in US, there's a huge market out there for them, outside of US, which is bound to become bigger than the whole "iPad market".
Such is not the case with apps. If you've spent a few hundred dollars on apps over the course of a few years using iOS devices, the cost to switch (assuming you care about continuing to use any of those apps once you're on Android) is pretty high.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2675012
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2664474