With iPad Sales, Steve Schools the Street Again

January 20, 2011 at 11:17 am PT

In need of a chuckle? Take a look at Wall Street’s first-year iPad sales forecasts. They ranged from 1.1 million at their most conservative to 7 million at their most bullish, and averaged out at 3.3 million. Which is laughably short of the 14.8 million iPads Apple ended up selling in 2010. And, as Horace Dediu notes over at Asymco, indicative of the disruptive change the iPad has initiated in the computing market and the lead Apple has claimed as a result. “If analysts, to a man, fail, you can be sure that competitors are no wiser,” says Dediu. “This collective shrug amounts to the greatest competitive advantage any entrant could ever hope to obtain.”

Indeed. What was it Bill Gates said about the iPad? “It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”

Mmhmm.

Tagged with: 2010, advantage, Apple, Asymco, Bill Gates, competition, computing, digital, estimates, forecasts, hardware, Horace Dediu, innovation, iPad, John Paczkowski, market, Microsoft, Reader, sales, Wall Street

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http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/547E75SAQFGHBZ4KLONOS4E4GE BuzzSaw

I hear that Hu Do Jintao stopped in Frisco to visit China’s FAVORITE client Stevie Gods (EVERYTHING CrApple Sells is made there for the last 15 years) and to drop off a NEW LIVER harvested from a Chinese Dissident at a Commie Work Camp – AKA Foxcomm.

Did you know that CrApple was the FIRST US COMPUTER company to OUTSOURCE ALL it’s AMERICAN JOBS in Manufacturing starting with the Apple ][e to Canada in 1980??? Yeah, turn one around and look at the Back Plate! Apple MAKES NOTHING, period!

Stevie Gods comes before MaoBama.
Anonymous

@BuzzSaw, it’s sad to see that irony can’t possibly keep up with Fox News… and that medication can’t help unless you take it regularly.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NHEATNGAMZWB2LRFSXCTBMNP34 JamesD

And you, of course, own a computer made in the USA? Idiot.
Anonymous

> “It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on
> the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish
> Microsoft had done it.” [Bill Gates]

Could just be PR speak, but if true that is amazing. He really wouldn’t wish Microsoft had ported NT to ARM architecture in 2007 while creating a touch version of the Win32 API with a 1-click online application store? Really? Because the CES crowd was really disappointed to hear Microsoft is just getting started on that and won’t have it done until 2013 at the earliest, 2015 in the real world.
http://twitter.com/gregtead gregtead

If only someone could run a sports franchise like these guys run Apple.
http://blog.macb.net macbeach

Of course porting the NT architecture to ARM would have been their first mistake.
$330AShareMakesMeGrin>8-D

Bill Gates thought the iPad was crap because it didn’t run Windows or use his all-time favorite tool, the stylus. Seriously though, Bill Gates was no better than the rest of those geniuses that thought the iPad would be a mega-failure. This time Microsoft has sworn that it’s going to build the Windows Slate right and kick the crap out of that useless iPad that doesn’t even come with a stylus. I’m certain Microsoft is going to stubbornly stick with its plan of building a Windows Slate running Windows 7 and they’re going to put their gonads in a vice trying to sell it.

The iPad ought to have some gesture that pulls up a five-pixel dot that you can use your finger to write with so you don’t need a stylus.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BTU22VAS3IRJFEBMWSH64IHJCI Vishnu

John, nice one… you may want to correct the graphic a tad… it is 14.8 million in 9 months (3 quarters), there are 3 more months to go… you can be sure there will be more than 15 million iPads in the first year… cheers.
Anonymous

If possible, don’t miss an ipad! ipad is so fantastic! now ,i am a ipad user , i use my ipad playing games, whach movies, sending e-mail ect. i maily use my ipad to enjoy movies, as i am a movie fan, i watch videos everyday and i never go to the cinema. More info about iPad: http://www.aneesoft.com/tutorials/ipad/index.html
Anonymous

The revolutionary iPad was unveiled almost 1 year ago.

The industry calls it evolutionary, but the industry has not evolved an equitable competitor a year later. …and may never do so!

Apple is working on it’s next generation iPad.

Apple sold 19.5 million iPods in it’s 1st qtr of 2011.
How many competitor’s iPods were sold? No one even follows that anymore, Apple literally owns the market share! Why? Because it’s a no brainer – it just works easier, faster, better than any other MP3 player for 10 years!!! …so far.

The 1st iPhone was launched just 4 years ago. Apple was not in the phone business before that never mind the Smart Phone business. They sold 16.2 million phones (all smart phones) in the 1st Qtr of 2011.

Apple makes the niche for their existence!
How?
Simple: they make it easy to use, price competitive, state-of- the-art, and fun.

Apple has been rewarded for doing this consistently with $$$s, lotsa $$$s, $ 6 billion profit in the last quarter!