Tablet Market

Comparing Back to School iPad demand for 2012 and 2013 shows demand sliding for 2013.

iPad yields to Android Overlords? Wait till Back to School

Strategy Analytics recently released findings that Android sales have been much higher than iPad sales. We’ve seen the iPad stumbling since the launch of the Gen 4 iPad and the iPad mini in the fall. The closing experience gap between Android and iOS tablets has led to eroding demand and aggressive price cutting by US retailers Walmart and Best Buy for new iPads to drive up sales. The only ace Apple may have up their sleeve for Q3 2013 is the rush by parents to equip students with tablets. Apple’s bet on retaking the education market by partnering with textbook publishers could pay out this fall as an increasing number of institutions require iPads for classroom use.

Issue is that we are seeing sliding demand as we head into Back To School season. After a spring of iPad mini promotions we are seeing saturation effects across all the iPads with the exception of older iPad 2 models still being snapped up. The impact on mini demand by a small price drop shows a saturation of iPad with newer experiences not requiring the same upgrade path that the iPhone has over the years. We think Strategy Analytics is on the right path with Q3 being another week iPad quarter. If we see things change, we will let you know!

Mini demand swells on price drop in April

Lack of Experience Innovation Drives Apple to Compete By Lowering Prices, It Worked!

When the iPad Mini was launched in late 2012 it was into an already confused consumer market of the Apple faithful. The iPhone 5 had been launched weeks earlier to a largely yawn response from the market (though it’s improving now). The iPad 4 launched with the Mini, and out of the normal cycle consumers had come to expect from Apple, largely delivered what consumers expected from the iPad 3 in March of 2012. Along with the release of the iPhone, Apple released new iPod Touch, known commonly the gateway drug to full iPhone ownership, but at a reasonably high price point. This put Apple in a pricing squeeze play for the Mini, pricing it twice as much as it’s comparable competitors. As a result we saw slow adoption for the iPad Mini and even the iPad 4 around the holiday season.

Cut to today and we see demand spiking in a way we have not seen for an Apple product since the iPhone became available on Verizon. In wallowing through the social media analysis, we found the culprit. Apple allowed retailers to drop the price by a significant percentage in April, ahead of Mother’s Day and after probably having a disappointing Valentine’s Day. This is typically unheard of for Apple to allow a price drop before launching another product. The punchline? Apple is losing its ability to demand a premium from the market. A smaller iPad is cool but not enough to compete against the much cheaper but almost equivalent experience of the Kindle Fire. Apple will have to pull more than one rabbit from their hat at the event on 10 June. Argus Insights is preparing a special surprise to assess the market impact of Apple’s announcements. More soon!

Again, we called it. Sales of the new iPad fail to meet expectations.

According to Josh Lowensohn over at CNET, “Apple has sold fewer units of the device than analysts had estimated it would.” via Strong iPhone sales overshadow new iPad in Apple earnings | Apple – CNET News. You can see from our prior posts that Argus Insights was concerned about the launch performance of the new iPad. Not only were the delight levels falling drastically ( at

least until Best Buy sent out their “please review your recent purchase emails” to what appears to be a cohort of passionate iPad owners all posting glowing reviews on 18 April) but the buzz levels for the new iPad were low, especially compared to the still available, but now cheaper, iPad 2. Delight and Buzz both began to recover in April but not soon enough to shift our thinking regarding the earnings call this past Tuesday.

Consumer responses to product experiences, as measured using our CIA platform, continue to be leading indicators of sales trends. We also anticipated the surprising increase in iPad 2 sales at the end of Summer 2011. I’m sure all those iPad 3 case and accessory manufacturers would have appreciated some advanced warning before ramping additional inventory…

If you want our help getting the jump on uncertainty in your market, please contact Argus Insights today, sales@argusinsights.com or +1-877-992-7487.

iPad 3 recovers the love of consumers, just in time for the earnings call on Tuesday

You know we’ve been sharing that the new iPad has proved to be a more compelling reason for consumers to buy an iPad 2 than the new iPad. Then the improbable happened. The iPad 3 recovered. It did more than recover, it jumped to the top of the charts. It’s like the whole family answered the call to review Aunt Bertha’s steamy romance model on Amazon when sales were flagging. Check out the graph below to see what we’re talking about.

What happened? Was this the result of post Tax Day ex

uberance? “Now that I’m getting a tax refund, I’m buying a new iPad!” The new iPad jumped ahead of the iPad 2 after a rapid decline in delight, something unheard of for an Apple product. In fact, the new iPad is considered to be the most delightful tablet on the market today, barring any new releases in the coming weeks as you can see in the sparklines below.

SparkelineTablets — Summary of top tablets in North America. The new iPad shot to the top after languishing in the middle for weeks after launch.

If you want to know why this drastic shift took place, give us a shout at Argus Insights. We’ll be releasing a report on all the sordid details of the new iPad’s market response in the coming weeks that will include our own forecast as to the future success of the new iPad.

Not listening cost RIM $485M

RIM announced a $485 Million write-off for the mistakes they made with the Playbook. This was a half a billion dollar mistake. Our data showed they never really recovered, even after extensive firmware updates and price drops. The only dip we see in the rest of the tablet market was the outrage over HP dropping the Touchpad.

Only the launch of the Vizio and Toshiba Thrive knocked the Playbook from last place amongst the major Tablet OEM’s.

The Playbook went from conception to launch in 9 months. It didn’t even launch with an email client. Wait, Blackberry, known for their awesome email, the prima

ry reason people buy from RIM is for their push email and their tablet can’t even connect to their email service? This was a major disconnect for early users. Apple has proven time and again that you can launch without major features working as long as you pick the right major features. So the Playbook launched with the ability to run Android apps and games but you couldn’t check your email. (Our Apologies, Android support came later. Thanks to Jon Robinson (@jr4941) for catching this!) (actually we were right, it was released with the ability to support Android Apps through an app player) To paraphrase the knight guarding the holy grail in The Last Crusade, RIM “chose poorly.”

Companies have been using Argus Insights to pick the right aspects of the experience to focus on, to understand what consumers are demanding and what is disappointing them. Our experience metrics track to sales volume so you know our results reflect what is driving consumer purchase behavior.

Our hearts go out to RIM. Further proof that you can’t get faster, better, and cheaper all at the same time. Great innovation takes time. Give your users the gift of time and attention and they’ll repay it tenfold.

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