Apple iPad sales slip as cheap Android tablet tsunami looms

Apple's iPad share of the fondleslab market slipped slightly in the last quarter from 61.5 per cent to 54.6 per cent. But with the demand for tablets booming and Apple selling 15.4 million units in the last quarter of 2011, it's unlikely anyone will shed tears over these results in Cupertino. The 2011 Q4 stats from IDC show a …

[hexx]

from the linked article, this says it all:

"Worldwide media tablet shipments"

shipments != sales

[ThomH]

It's a result we all know is coming though, right? Apple's sales, though still growing meteorically, aren't going to keep up with such a rapidly expanding market — especially now Amazon have jumped in.

The interesting thing is going to be whether Amazon's fork of Android ends up deviating so far from the original that it becomes a different market segment again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple doesn't seem to be planning to lose on the iPad.

The iPad 2 is still around for a reason, you can already get a refurb 16Gb unit for $349 and Best Buy was even selling it new for $369 last week.

Want to bet we'll see further reductions along the year? Between a $199 Kindle Fire and a $299 larger and generally nicer iPad what will people pick?

[GoGlen]

Where did you get your (made up) numbers?

Apple stated the iPad2 would sell for $399. Yet, you "categorically" made your comparison between a $199 Kindle and a $299 "iPad 2".

Please, see the book on the edge of your desk? It's called "reality". Apple hasn't read it yet, so you're not allowed to, either.

They've not finished milking the market for their margins, so would rather sell less than accept $100/less per item. They need that! With only $100,000,000,000 in the bank ($100 billion), and a stock value making them the most valuable in history, they cannot possibly afford to sell iPads for less than $200/profit/each. Kindle, potentially losing $10/each... "does not compute".

[Anonymous Coward]

Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire is still only on sale in the US, despite the rumours. The iPad is available almost anywhere in the world.

When the Kindle Fire market share stagnates in the US can it really grow much more?

[Gene]

Last quarter?

Maybe some folks heard a new iPad was coming and waited until this quarter. Context is everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

I have just ordered mine, delivery April 5th. Yes I did wait to see what the 'new' one was all about.

However, this is not an upgrade purchase.

[Armando 123]

Re: Last quarter?

Exactly what I was thinking. The iPad3 rumors have been swirling for quite a while, and more people have gotten more savvy about Apple's product cycle as time goes on.

[JohnyB]

Re: Last quarter?

For all of you that you dont know, the new iPad 3 or iPad HD is already out

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the money?

Even with a reduced market share, Apple still has the high end pretty much to itself.

I wonder if the board of Apple ever play Scrooge McDuck and go and swim through oceans of dollar bills in their vaults?

[Jonathan White]

Re: Where's the money?

It's an interesting point - much like the smartphone market, it's very likely Apple won't give a flying fig about 'market share' as long as they carry on making a ton of money. They have an ecosystem which is probably big enough now to be self-sustaining for a decade, so while they may make lots of noise about 'killing Android', the reality is they're pretty much insulated from whatever Google might do by an enormously thick layer of money.

[johnnymotel]

I'm surprised ElReg falls so easy for the click bait, as the poster above states and none the less in the very first line of the report.....shipments into sales channels.

I am certain Apple's share is falling, it has to eventually, but let's compare oranges to oranges here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stretch

It's a bit of a stretch to call anything from Kindle an Android Tablet in the truest sense, Android derived certainly. It's been said many times before that you can't really compare a Kindle to an iPad as they're focusing on different markets

We'll have to wait and see what happens in the next couple of quarters. The cheaper iPad2 could swing things quite differently

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Android race to the bottom...

the winner is....

Apple!

[Gordon 10]

Err correction to headline

Sales increased. Market share slipped.

Thus the folly of relying on percentages without understanding the underlying data is shown.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Apple has their user base and vendors locked in those cheap apps and 30% subscriptions will start to increase. As a corporation they have to make more money this year then the last one or people start getting fired. This will be done by increasing percentages taken from content providers more than likely.

Their shareholders will also be revolting soon to get a dividend on their stored cash.

In fact I see quite a few parallels to the Roman Empire. Rome was the biggest and baddest power on the planet at one point. Only Apple does not have an equivalent to Hadrian's wall and the barbarians are gathering. That $589 stock price will not last and when it bursts their customers will pay the price. I for one will fiddle while it burns.

[Jonathan White]

You do realise you're categorising Android users as a Barbarian Horde, right?

[Jean-Luc]

clever comparison, fer sure

>Only Apple does not have an equivalent to Hadrian's wall and the barbarians are gathering.

Errr... you're aware that Hadrian's wall was only relevant in the context of the ass-end of the boonies of the Roman empire, right? At the height of Roman power.

The barbarians you are thinking of came several hundred years later, about a thousand miles away and by that time the Romans were kinda gone anyway from Britain anyway and couldna hae cared less about Scotland.

But don't let that get in the way of your entertaining us ;-)

[ratfox]

Predictions for 2015?

Bullshit research is bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's not interested in highest marketshare...

I'm sure Apple aren't going to complain about having the highest marketshare but ultimately they'd prefer to trade marketshare for margin rather than cutting the cost of their products to compete with their competitors.

Look at the iPhone for example, Apple has been quite happy to let Android overtake the iPhone but they're making money hand over fist due to the high profit margin whereas Android sales are based on high volume rather than high profit margin. Same thing with the Mac too.

[csumpi]

Re: Apple's not interested in highest marketshare...

Yeah. You are right. Just this morning, as Tim Cook was sipping his breakfast coffee, he was thinking how awesome it would be to give up another 5-10% market share to Android. Not only that, he also decided to drop all the lawsuits against Android manufacturers. Because he realized that you were right: market share doesn't count.

I mean come on now, does what you're saying make any sense to you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Useless article, useless conclusions

There's not enough information presented in this article to draw any sort of conclusion. Did Apple sell more or fewer units than last quarter? Did the market size change from last quarter to this quarter? Without knowing the trends and the sizes, one can't say anything significant about Apple's future. Perhaps they've sold 10% more units in a market that has increased in size by 50%. Does this spell doom for Apple? I don't think so!

Show us some real information to support the sensationalist headlines.

[Confuciousmobil]

The reason Apple will continue to dominate is their business model. No matter how good Android is, most Android tablets need to make all the profit on the sale of the device, the most obvious exception is the Kindle Fire where Amazon have an ongoing revenue stream. Samsung et al, do not.

Windows 8 could change that, if M$ get it right, but Android? Where's the money?

[D@v3]

software vs hardware

the thing that always gets me is how much the picture changes when you stop comparing iOS to android, and start looking at iPads vs Samsung galaxy tabs, motorola zooms, asus transformers, HTC fliers etc etc

Every sale of an iOS tablet device, is an iPad. Every sale of an android device, is one of any of dozens of different devices, and I think this is what Apple knows. They may have a (slightly) dwindling share of the slablet /software/ market, but their position in the hardware market still seems to be pretty strong.

[CheesyTheClown]

Windows doesn't factor

So, Microsoft has spent billions creating a tablet OS, porting to ARM, rewriting Office and seeding bunches of app vendors to port their star products to Windows and IDC predicts they won't be able to even hit 1% market share in three years?

The Samsung series 7 slate is really a publicly released prototype, and yet, with Windows 8 installed, it is by far far more capable and useful than all the other tablets out there. No half assed, half baked apps, it us genuinely a full computer that also has an app mode for when you're out and about.

But maybe that is a good point. Maybe Windows tablets shouldn't be in the same category as iPad and Android as unlike those two, they're useful for something.