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iPad Pro Outsells Microsoft Surface in Launch Quarter

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The latest numbers from market research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker show that Apple remains the largest vendor in a declining tablet market, shipping 16.1 million iPads in the fourth calendar quarter of 2015. While the iPad continues to be the best-selling tablet, its worldwide market share remains only 24.5 percent despite the all-new iPad Pro launching in early November.

iPad-Pro-vs-Microsoft-Surface-Pro-4.jpg

iPad shipments declined 24.8 percent compared to the year-ago quarter, when they totaled 21.4 million for 28.1 percent market share. The stagnant iPad sales during the holiday shopping season may be more attributable to the lack of an iPad Air refresh in 2015, however, as the iPad Pro outsold Microsoft Surface tablets in its debut quarter in what IDC describes as a "successful" launch.

idc_tablet_trend_4q15.jpg
"Despite lukewarm reviews, the iPad Pro was the clear winner this season as it was the top selling detachable, surpassing notable entries from Microsoft and other PC vendors," said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst with IDC. "It's also important to note that the transition towards detachable tablets has presented positive opportunities for both Apple and Microsoft. However, Google's recent foray into this space has been rather lackluster as the Android platform will require a lot more refinement to achieve any measurable success.
Click to expand...
Samsung continued to be the second largest tablet vendor with 9 million tablets shipped in the fourth quarter for 13.7 percent market share, an 18.1 percent year-over-year unit decline. Amazon, Lenovo, and Huawei rounded off the top five, with 5.2 million, 3.2 million, and 2.2 million global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter respectively. All other tablet vendors had a combined 45.8 percent market share.

idc_tablets_q4_15.jpg

iPad sales have declined for eight consecutive quarters year-over-year due to, among other reasons, longer tablet refresh cycles compared to smartphones. Apple is rumored to introduce a new iPad Air 3 at a March media event, which could help combat the decline alongside the iPad Pro and iPad mini 4, but most of those sales will fall within the second calendar quarter of 2016.

Overall tablet shipments in 2015 totaled 206.8 million, down 10.1 percent from 230.1 million in 2014.

Article Link: iPad Pro Outsells Microsoft Surface in Launch Quarter
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/01/ipad-pro-vs-surface-idc-4q15-tablet-sales/
MH01

MH01

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mkay....

The title says the Ipad Pro outsold the surface, cool....

The supporting evidence is for tablet says, not model specific.

Reading the actual source material (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40990116), the real reference is

"We believe Apple sold just over two million iPad Pros while Microsoft sold around 1.6 million Surface devices" guess there is not much story with a 400 000 difference...

Maybe focus on one story here....?
 
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American Hero

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A lot of people went out and bought the iPad "Pro" because it's the first of an iPad released in that size with beefier specs.

Give it another quarter of a year and we'll see how well it does compared to the Surface Pro.

I'd pick the Surface Pro over the iPad Pro mainly because the Surface Pro runs a desktop system. The iPad runs iOS.

Personally, I'm interested in neither product.
 
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acctman

acctman

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At this point all die hard and even casual Apple users have an iPad. There really is no reason to get a new one ever year or two. I have an iPad 3 Wifi and see no reason is buying a new one. All my apps run fine. My next purchase will probably be a iPad Mini but i'm in no rush to get one.
 
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Serban

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MH01 said:
mkay....

The title says the Ipad Pro outsold the surface, cool....

The supporting evidence is for tablet says, not model specific.

Reading the actual source material (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40990116), the real reference is

"We believe Apple sold just over two million iPad Pros while Microsoft sold around 1.6 million Surface devices" guess there is not much story with a 400 000 difference...

Maybe focus on one story here....?
Click to expand...
yes but the big difference is ipad pro is just one product that has been sold in over two millions while the surface devices are surface 3+surface pro 4=1.6 mill
so a big deal
 
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Makosuke

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One statistic I’m curious about and have never seen any good number for is an over-time graph of total tablets in active use.

Looking only at iPads, if that number has been increasing at a rate of some significant fraction of the total sales in the same period, that would indicate that the overall market is increasing, but iPads aren’t breaking and people are happy enough with what they have to not replace it very quickly.

If, on the other hand, it’s not going up by much, or is actually decreasing, that would indicate that there are less people overall who want a tablet at all, and it’s a shrinking market.

The former isn’t great for business, but it does indicate a relatively healthy market--just one that saw initial spikes because it was in the process of being saturated. The latter would be a bad sign, and would mean either people are happy with their phones or end up going back to a laptop.

I have no idea which is the case, but I’d really like to. Based entirely on the statistically insignificant sample of “people I know”, it seems like the “saturating market with a long replacement cycle” is at least believable--I know a lot of people with several-generation-old iPads that they use heavily and aren’t in a hurry to replace.

If nothing else, I’m 100% certain that iPhones (and other phones) have a shorter replacement cycle than iPads. I can base this entirely on the significant number of people I see walking around with recent-model iPhones with broken screens. All else being equal, people drop and rough up their phones a lot more than their tablets.
 
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sracer

sracer

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American Hero said:
A lot of people went out and bought the iPad "Pro" because it's the first of an iPad released in that size with beefier specs.

Give it another quarter of a year and we'll see how well it does compared to the Surface Pro.

I'd pick the Surface Pro over the iPad Pro mainly because the Surface Pro runs a desktop system. The iPad runs iOS.

Personally, I'm interested in neither product.
Click to expand...
If I need something that runs a desktop system, it isn't going to be a Surface. It'll be something that doesn't compromise the desktop experience, like a Macbook Air or Dell XPS. If I need a tablet device, it isn't going to be Surface (that lacks the quantity of quality touch-optimized Modern UI apps).

The fact that the iPad Pro is "only" an iPad and sells for as much as a Surface Pro (which can run desktop software) is still able to outsell the Surface Pro does indeed say something.
 
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DEMinSoCAL

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They compare the iPad Pro to the Surface Pro sales, but I don't see any Surface Pro sales numbers? Or am I missing something?
 
MH01

MH01

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Serban said:
yes but the big difference is ipad pro is just one product that has been sold in over two millions while the surface devices are surface 3+surface pro 4=1.6 mill
so a big deal
Click to expand...

Which is fine, but the article is in fact about tablet sales....... the ipad pro v surface is a side note, and guesstimate, though the headline is all about that point.....

The headline does not match the story. Though should be a bait magnet for pro v surface debate.

Actually you did not read the reference material. they speculate pro v surface pro
 
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RedOrchestra

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Serban said:
yes but the big difference is ipad pro is just one product that has been sold in over two millions while the surface devices are surface 3+surface pro 4=1.6 mill
so a big deal
Click to expand...

"We believe Apple sold just over two million iPad Pros while Microsoft sold around 1.6 million Surface devices, a majority of which were Surface Pro and not the more affordable Surface 3."
 
MH01

MH01

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dmylrea said:
They compare the iPad Pro to the Surface Pro sales, but I don't see any Surface Pro sales numbers? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

This is tablet sales as a whole.

If you click on the actual reference article, they only speculate on what the pro and surface sales might be, 2 million to 1.6 million.
 
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