U.S. Non-iPad Tablet Market Led by TouchPad Fire Sales as iPad's Domination Continues

[*LTD*]

This is really pathetic that there isn't even one tablet that sold fairly well, ie, a few million units. Are the Android tablets really that bad? I have only played around with them for a few minutes a couple of times so I am not qualified to judge. There's no question that the iPad is the top tablet, but why isn't there anything else that is a distant second? In the smartphone market there is lots of competition and the sales are more evenly divided.

The tablet market is nothing like the smartphone market. No contracts.

Additionally, with cheap junk phones you can still make calls and text. At the end of the day, even if you have a ********* phone, it's still a phone. And for those not into the whole app ecosystem, even a low-end Android will do. Two years on and they can get rid of it.

Tablets are more of a long-term investment and consumers are expecting a richer, fuller experience. The true mettle of a mobile OS is proven on the tablet. Consumers are much less willing to compromise in this area.

 

[nvbrit]

Um. How can the iPad have 90% of the market if the rest have 61% share? Wouldn't it make sense that Apples market share must be the remaining 39%?

 

[paul4339]

Um. How can the iPad have 90% of the market if the rest have 61% share? Wouldn't it make sense that Apples market share must be the remaining 39%?

Apple has 90%;
Of the remaining 10% non-Apple tablets: HP, Samsung, Motorola, Asus, Acer has a total of 61% (or 6.1% of the total tablet market).

.

 

[the8thark]

For the first three quarters of 2011, Apple reported total iPad sales of just over 25 million iPads on a worldwide basis, and while the company does not break out its U.S. iPad sales, that number is almost certainly well above 10 million units, putting Apple in the neighborhood of 90% sales share.

Recent studies have pegged Apple's share of iPad shipments at closer to 65-70%, but those studies measure shipments from manufacturers to distribution channels and not sales to end users. While Apple has repeatedly noted that it is selling every iPad it can make, competitors' devices still appear to be languishing on store shelves amid low interest from consumers.

I disagree Apple had above 10 million US tablet sales. If the last quarterly report by Apple is anything to go by as a trend for the while year then:

International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Link for proof:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/10/18Apple-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Results.html

We have to assume this is roughly the same for tablet sales too. And this means US sales are 37%. And 37% of 25 million is 9.25 million. Most definantly not "well above 10 million units".

So we can guess Apple did sell 9.25 million iPads in the US for this period.

Now with 200k = 17% (of sales excluding Apple) we can work out how much each sold for the period (rough values):

HP = 200k
Samsung = 188k
ASUS = 117k
Motorola = 109k
Acer = 109k

The total for this is = 723k
Overall total is 9.25 million (Apple) + 723k (the rest) = 9.937 million

And from this we can work out the rough relative US market share with Apple included:

Apple: 92.7%
HP = 2.0%
Samsung = 1.8%
Asus = 1.17%
Motorola = 1.1%
Acer = 1.1%

So in short:

Well over 10 million Apple tablet sales = wrong. MacRumors check your facts better.
Roughly 90% total market share by Apple = pretty well spot on correct.

 

[huntercr]

It's pretty sad . . . when people only started buying your tablet when you priced it cheap as dirt, for which you later dropped support entirely, and on which you took a massive loss.

And the thing that truly sucks is that the platform is actually great. I'm predominantly Apple tech at home, but I couldn't resist picking up one of these as a coffee table internet browser and video player for my kids while on trips.

( warning, spontaneous touchpad review follows )

Man the touchpad is amazingly good quality. Not as good as my wife's ipad 2, but especially after the recent OS update and the optimizations you can do of turning off the system debugging etc, it's a really slick little device.

I know most people think what killed it was Apple, but really I think it was ultimately Samsung and the new crop of android tablets. It was clear that Apple was always going to be #1 with the ipad. ( well once the first gen took off ) but HP was forced to fight for second, and Android as a platform was going to win that. It's very sad.

I wonder if they would have been able to lower their price to say... $300 what would have happened. I can't say enough good things about the touchpad, but if I had to pay full price I wouldn't have been so kind.
Couple of things that I think it has on par with the iPad is battery life, and User interface. It's all very elegant and professional. Their integrated universal contacts + news feed+ skype + facebook + email is very slick.
( similar to what android did )

Oh well. Like I said... worth the $149 I paid, definitely. If you can pick up one on ebay for about that price you won't be disappointed.

 

[ProwlingTiger]

But people have no problem buying the iPad at full price. Why not one other tablet that sold well at the $500 price point?

Because the mass market has deemed that those tablets are not worth $500. Bump set spike.

 

[MacAddict1978]

The Touchpad sucked too, so I'm sure if the Xoom was $99, it would sell. That is an appropriate price for something of that caliber. I'd say it would be worth $99. But definitely not $699 or however much it was originally. The Touchpad was not worth $499. At $99, it was worth the money. I'm not denying why the Touchpad was #2, but I'm just pointing out that the Touchpad likely did not cannibalize Android sales. After the Touchpad, the iPad market will still be the, well the iPad market. There effectively is no tablet market. Now that there are no more Touchpads, effectively, we will not see any boost in Android sales. Unless Android Tablet makers lower the prices of current models.

If you notice, the news headline here calls it the "non-iPad market." Analysts now have to use that phrase because when you lump non-iPad sales with iPad sales on a graph, you cannot see the non-iPad sales. There aren't enough of them. The iPad becomes an outlier and gives the graphs a scale too large to distinguish Android sales. So now, analysts are doing the clever thing of calling it the "non-iPad market", that way they can showcase Android sales. I would actually take it a step further and call it the "Android Tablet Market" and the "iPad Market." Hell, I think even when you make a graph with non-iPad tablet sales and iPad sales, the scale is still too large. Also, don't confuse sales numbers with shipping numbers. A lot of manufactures count sales as shipping to retailers.

By arguing that Android tablets didn't do well in the non-iPad market due to the Touchpad firesale, you're insinuating that once the fire sale is over, the Android tablet sales will either A) increase or B) remain stagnate. It will be option B and that is still not good, nor is it related to the Touchpad. Android tablet sales were slow before the Touchpad firesale, and they'll be slow after. Non-iPad devices are simply not priced right. And the Touchpad firesale proved that.

If these numbers give any true idea of units, the Touch Pad only sold around 200,000 units at $99. That's still not what I'd call a home run in any means.

I question these numbers a lot because if you read things cited by HP themselves, they had a production schedule for 1 million units, with 60% built for launch, and the second wave of tablets using up any remaining components for the other 40%. Of that 40%, I have no idea how many units they actually built and shipped as it's not likely that had all the parts to fill that number. At the 60% end, it shows these numbers are a bit... un-credible.

To your point about Touch Pad's not canibilizing, you are correct. The touch pads were gone in mere minutes.

Android tablets aren't selling for one reason only: lack of public interest!
For all the Fandroids out there, it's interesting to realize that more of them boast how an Android tablet is so much better, but statitics are showing they either aren't buying them, or are buying ipads and talking out of their behinds. I liken to think the latter.

----------

Um. How can the iPad have 90% of the market if the rest have 61% share? Wouldn't it make sense that Apples market share must be the remaining 39%?

It doesn't.

The numbers in the post only broke out the top 6 NON-iPad tablet makers who showed a decent percentage. iPad sales are not represented in this data at all.
If you took the other makers and added their numbers, it would be 100%.

There are currently over 100 models of tablets in the market, and over 60 vendors making them. It would be a long list with lots of companies showing .25%. Note, even Sony isn't listed (though they were very late to the game.)

 

[thenerdal]

Because the mass market has deemed that those tablets are not worth $500. Bump set spike.

No, the Mass market excluding people who only buy Apple products want a lower price. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 does everything the iPad 2 does and probably more.

The only reason iPad is selling well is because people think it's cool. My friend said he was getting one and I asked him "Why not get the Galaxy Tab 10.1?" and he said "But I want the iPad!"

 

[vanzantapple]

I'm surprised that HP only sold 200,000 TouchPads and also surprised that they won with that. I read somewhere, on the precentral.org I think, that the number of total TouchPads made was close to one million.

WebOS is so beautiful and awesome to use. If it was as polished and reliable as iOS it would be perfect. Yes even without a billion apps it would still be perfect.

 

[AppleScruff1]

The tablet market is nothing like the smartphone market. No contracts.

Additionally, with cheap junk phones you can still make calls and text. At the end of the day, even if you have a ********* phone, it's still a phone. And for those not into the whole app ecosystem, even a low-end Android will do. Two years on and they can get rid of it.

Tablets are more of a long-term investment and consumers are expecting a richer, fuller experience. The true mettle of a mobile OS is proven on the tablet. Consumers are much less willing to compromise in this area.

I really wonder if the average consumer has any idea of the differences between Android and iOS. I also wonder how many of the iPad buyers gave more than a passing glance at the alternative choices. And I question how many of these Average Joe consumers have any idea what the Apple ecosystem is vs the others, unless they own an iPhone, Mac, etc.

I don't doubt that tablets are more of a long term investment than a phone for most people, but I can't help but believe that the Apple name has a lot to do with the lopsided sales figures on top of the iPad being an outstanding product.

 

[something3153]

It just goes to show how much influence price has on the market.

Would be interesting to see where the Amazon Fire places when compared to the tablet market, though I'm not sure if you could call the Fire a low-grade tablet or a high class e-reader.

It's a tablet. Anything else I can clear up for you?

 

[*LTD*]

I know most people think what killed it was Apple, but really I think it was ultimately Samsung and the new crop of android tablets.

What killed it first was Palm. Then HP yanked it out of the morgue and just did a Weekend at Bernie's thing with it.

Both companies have shown a galactic level of incompetence in general to begin with, so no surprises about what happened.

 

[something3153]

Windoof 8 (Germans will get this) is probably only pulling even with ios5.

Having used both extensively, WP7.5 is at least the equal of iOS5. How much time do you have with WP7.5?

 

[monkeylui]

When the news of the $99 Touchpad even I considered it. But I believe its all about content & ecosystem now. Only Apple & Amazon can easily & reliably offer that to would-be tablet owners. If 80-90% of what people do on a laptop or desktop can easily be replaced by a tablet + access tons of content, then there's no reason not to go with amazon or apple. Tablet makers have some real work to do. Btw, I'm using my Kindle Fire to write this & I'm also an ipad owner.

 

[paul4339]

Quote:
International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
...
We have to assume this is roughly the same for tablet sales too. And this means US sales are 37%. ...

I'm not quite sure if this is a good assumption because, un-subsidized products sales like the MacBook and iMac are stronger in the US than international... you'd think that the iPad is similar but to a lesser degree.

.

 

[Otto J]

This is really pathetic that there isn't even one tablet that sold fairly well, ie, a few million units. Are the Android tablets really that bad? I have only played around with them for a few minutes a couple of times so I am not qualified to judge. There's no question that the iPad is the top tablet, but why isn't there anything else that is a distant second? In the smartphone market there is lots of competition and the sales are more evenly divided.

The thing is, that "a few million units" would be much more than "fairly well", actually it would be AMAZING, if Apple hadn't set a whole new standard of measure for success. One number that's still mind boggling to me, is the one mentioned at the 4S presentation, that it took Sony 30 years to sell 300.000 Walkman cassette players. In a parallel universe where the iPad doesn't exist, selling 100.000 tablets by now would be a huge success for any company.

So, why is it more evenly divided in phones? Basically because Apple didn't get as much of a head start there as they did in tablets. One could argue that in the phone market, it's not about the others keeping up with Apple, actually Apple was the one that was trying to get into the existing market (which one must conclude that they did remarkably well). What I'm saying is, probably most of the Android phone sales hasn't been taken from iPhone sales, it's been taken from non-smartphone sales. A Sony Ericsson user would logically upgrade to an Android-powered Sony Ericsson, for example. I would find it highly interesting to see a statistic on how many Android users are previous iPhone users. I would bet not many.

In the tablet market, there isn't any other, lesser-quality products to replace, you just have a straight competition with Apple. I would say that because of this, the tablet market is a better measure of each manufacturer's competence, than the phone market. What I'm saying is, that Nokia could start manufacturing ONLY really, REALLY crappy phones, and still sell quite a lot of them (although obviously fewer, and obviously only for a limited time), because a lot of people buy Nokia just because that's what they always did. That doesn't happen in the tablet market, you HAVE to deliver something noteworthy that Apple doesn't. So far none has really presented a tablet that has much going for it other than "it's not an Apple". Which will keep a few haters happy, but the majority of buyers don't give a rat's ass about who makes it, as long as it's good.

 

[SandynJosh]

But people have no problem buying the iPad at full price. Why not one other tablet that sold well at the $500 price point?

The answer is "several things."

1. Obviously, excellent marketing is the first thing people become aware of a product. Apple is advertising like crazy, then there's the Apple stores where you get excellent demos by knowledgeable trained people.

2. Then the packaging is pure sex! From the box it comes in to the design of the device it says, "I am the best thing you've ever laid eyes on."

3. Once you get your hands on the iPad it is like holding something beamed down from outer space. Everything on the screen moves as if it is controlled by the best Swiss watch movement. Never herky jerky or unexplained pauses

4. Then there's the whole ecosystem the iPad is part of...from the iTunes application, to the app Store you are bathed in pixie dust and wonder. Let's not forget the iCloud where all your stuff can go and be safe and rainbows and moonbeams hold your data softly in the fold of their lightness.

5. And you know it will only get better in the future, with retina sharp displays and Siri cooing in your ear as she fulfills your every stray thought.

Now, just try and see if any other device can match that for only a few hundred bills.

 

[Otto J]

No, the Mass market excluding people who only buy Apple products want a lower price. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 does everything the iPad 2 does and probably more.

The only reason iPad is selling well is because people think it's cool. My friend said he was getting one and I asked him "Why not get the Galaxy Tab 10.1?" and he said "But I want the iPad!"

If the Galaxy Tab was actually a better product, it would be "cool" to own one.

Regarding the fact that Apple is successfully charging a higher price than the competition: Let's not forget that if it wasn't for the success if iPad, a Galaxy Tab _7"_ would be twice the price of the cheapest iPad. And the tablets that actually were on the market before iPad, were quite expensive as well. iPad has been driving the competitor's target prices down, not up.

 

[thenerdal]

If the Galaxy Tab was actually a better product, it would be "cool" to own one.

Regarding the fact that Apple is successfully charging a higher price than the competition: Let's not forget that if it wasn't for the success if iPad, a Galaxy Tab _7"_ would be twice the price of the cheapest iPad. And the tablets that actually were on the market before iPad, were quite expensive as well. iPad has been driving the competitor's target prices down, not up.

Let me rephrase that, Apple products are a fad sometimes. Once a new iPhone comes out, most people will get it even if it's not as good as the competition. Same goes for iPads.

 

[Lennholm]

If the Galaxy Tab was actually a better product, it would be "cool" to own one.

Regarding the fact that Apple is successfully charging a higher price than the competition: Let's not forget that if it wasn't for the success if iPad, a Galaxy Tab _7"_ would be twice the price of the cheapest iPad. And the tablets that actually were on the market before iPad, were quite expensive as well. iPad has been driving the competitor's target prices down, not up.

Get real. The popularity of a product doesn't always correlate to it's quality, have you been living under a rock?
I agree with your second point though, price is really where Apple made the difference and no competitor can hope to compete with the iPad unless they price it lower, no matter if it is a better product or not

 

[Otto J]

Let me rephrase that, Apple products are a fad sometimes. Once a new iPhone comes out, most people will get it even if it's not as good as the competition. Same goes for iPads.

Partly, yes, the Apple buying crowd have come to a point where they just simply buy Apple because "it's an Apple", just like when people a decade or two ago bought Sony just because "it's a Sony" (I actually believe Sony used that phrase in marketing...). That behavior will never change, regardless of which company is providing good products continuously. But there are reasons why so far that strategy actually hasn't been bad: For one, in my opinion, there has NOT been a case where a new iPhone or iPad is "not as good as the competition". So far, the people buying stuff "just because it's an Apple", have been making the smart choice. Secondly, "better product" was not quite accurate. What I should have said was: Delivered a better user experience. And that can't be measured by just the hardware, you have to take into account the complete ecosystem. If people are saying "I don't want a Galaxy, i want an iPad", it's actually because they are the more modern thinkers, who don't evaluate just the hardware. They are buying into an ecosystem, and you can't get access to the Apple ecosystem by buying a Galaxy (and vice-versa). So, when people are saying that they don't give a crap whether the hardware is actually better or worse than the competition, it's because they're not buying hardware, they are buying the complete user experience. This is the point that most Android fans continue to miss. Most iPhone users don't CARE how much RAM is in their phone (I for one don't even know). Because of this, a competing product is not "better", because it has a bigger screen, more ram and a faster processor, UNLESS those features add up to a better experience. Which, so far, it doesn't in most people's opinion.

BTW, while the buying experience certainly matters, I do believe that what makes the products successful is the user experience, not the buying experience. Most people buy iPad's because they have seen it work well for others. If you don't see Galaxies working well for others, you're less likely to choose that. It's not necessarily about being "cool", as much as being reassured that you know what you're getting. Buyers like certainty.

----------

Get real. The popularity of a product doesn't always correlate to it's quality, have you been living under a rock?

Fair enough, replace "better" with "better value". I do agree that you can be successful with low quality, provided the price is low enough. But the iPad was never a low-quality, low-price product. Neither is it a high-quality, high-price product. It's a high-quality, low-price product. Which is why the competition is not successful with low-quality, low-price products. It really is that simple.

 

[thenerdal]

I never got why people said that iOS is the better user experience. I don't agree. iOS only has a better learning curve to it. With Android it will take a while to get used to it and learn all the features. But when you are used to it, it will offer a great user experience. Same with iOS.

And I don't get the whole Apple Ecosystem thing. What do you guys mean when you say that?

 

[Lennholm]

Fair enough, replace "better" with "better value". I do agree that you can be successful with low quality, provided the price is low enough. But the iPad was never a low-quality, low-price product. Neither is it a high-quality, high-price product. It's a high-quality, low-price product. Which is why the competition is not successful with low-quality, low-price products. It really is that simple.

I disagree, it's not that simple since imo not all of the unsuccessful competing low-price products are low-quality.

 

[JAT]

I really wonder if the average consumer has any idea of the differences between Android and iOS. I also wonder how many of the iPad buyers gave more than a passing glance at the alternative choices. And I question how many of these Average Joe consumers have any idea what the Apple ecosystem is vs the others, unless they own an iPhone, Mac, etc.

Probably few. But they don't need to. I'm starting to see people with their new iPads, and what they find to do with it. It really doesn't matter if Galaxy or Xoom can match or even beat it, people are finding the iPad to offer a solid product that does more than they imagined in a form that is extremely convenient. And then their friends notice. Snowball. Hill.

 

[linux2mac]

The great thing with these new "iPad Killers" and the media hype around them is some of that media then goes on to say well, it is nice but it is "missing" these features that the iPad has. The other ting is people might buy an iPad Killer only to find their friends' iPads are still better.

Very true. The iPad is simply the best out there. Apple still has its competitors "flummoxed." LOL

No, the Mass market excluding people who only buy Apple products want a lower price. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 does everything the iPad 2 does and probably more.

The only reason iPad is selling well is because people think it's cool. My friend said he was getting one and I asked him "Why not get the Galaxy Tab 10.1?" and he said "But I want the iPad!"

Agreed. "It's cool" when your computer and iOS devices "just work!"