Apple could ship as many as 8 millon to 10 million iPads in 2010, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst. That analyst's report also suggests that the iPad will target the market for $800-and-under notebooks, which could give competing manufacturers in that arena some pause. Analyst projections of strong sales, including one estimate of 120,000 iPads sold during the first day of preorders through Apple's Website, correlate with reports that large numbers of developers have started work on mobile applications for the iPad, which leverages the new iPhone SDK 3.2 beta for its apps.
Apple could ship between 8 million and 10 million iPads in 2010, according
to a Morgan Stanley analyst's research note, and sell in the neighborhood of 3
million to 4 million within its first year of release. Apple competitors who
take stock in the report may be concerned by its assertion that the iPad,
although a tablet PC, will aggressively occupy a portion of the $800-and-under
notebook market.
The WiFi-only version of the iPad is due to be released on April 3, although
online reports indicate that preorders have already begun shipping. The
version with both WiFi and 3G enabled will reach store shelves later in
April.
The 16GB version of the iPad sells for $499 with WiFi and $629 with WiFi and
3G. The 32GB version costs $599 with WiFi and $729 with WiFi and 3G, while the
64GB version costs $699 with WiFi and $829 with WiFi and 3G. Apple has imposed
an order limit of two per customer.
"Near-term, we believe the iPad will target the sizable sub-$800
consumer notebook market, which equates to 30 million units in the U.S.
and 120 million units globally," analyst Katy Huberty wrote. That
"momentum" could potentially be strengthened by the introduction of
content such as TV shows, ebooks and periodicals optimized for use on the
device.
That optimistic projection seems to correlate with reports from the
developer side, with analytics firm Flurry reporting a 185 percent uptick in
the number of new application starts for the iPhone OS in the past few weeks.
Apple has been promoting the new iPhone SDK 3.2 beta to developers as the ideal
platform for creating mobile apps for the iPad.
"Over six weeks since Apple announced the iPad, Flurry continues to
measure a significant increase in iPhone OS new application starts within the
system," Peter Farago, vice president of marketing for Flurry, wrote
in a March 15 posting on the firm's official blog. "We continue to
attribute this growth to excitement generated by the impending launch of iPad. ...
A large portion of the applications we are seeing are custom versions of existing
applications tailored for the iPad."
Apple claims that some 150,000 apps will be available upon the iPad's
launch. The company's App Store could hold as many as 300,000 apps by the end
of the year, according to research firm IDC.
Apple may have sold some 120,000 iPads on March 12, the first day that the
company opened its Website to preorders, according
to blogger and analyst Daniel Tello. However, Tello projected that iPad
pre-sales would inevitably level off in the days before the device's release;
according to the work that Tello did in conjunction with Investor
Village's AAPL
Sanity Forum, some 69 percent of customers chose the WiFi-only version of the
device. Estimated sales also seemed almost evenly split between the different
versions of the iPad, with 33 percent preferring the 16GB edition, 32 percent
selecting the 32GB and 22 percent choosing the 64GB.
According to Huberty, Apple could sell around 6 million iPads this year, a
number well above Wall Street projections of 3 million to 4 million units.
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Email
Print
