iPadversaries Need Mindshare to Have a Chance at Market Share

Competing with Apple’s iPad is no easy task. Not only must rivals match or out-innovate Apple in hardware, they’ve got to best it in software and price as well — which is equally difficult. And even if they manage that, they must still capture consumers’ attention. Which is tough to do if consumers mulling a tablet purchase often head straight for the Apple Store, limiting their choice of device to some variation of the iPad.

And evidently that happens quite a bit, according to Canaccord analyst T. Michael Walkley.

“Our checks indicate a large percentage of consumers purchase iPad directly from the Apple Store and therefore never consider competitive tablets,” Walkely said in a research note today. “We believe this further cements Apple’s leading consumer mind share in the tablet market. Therefore, despite our expectations for additional introductions of competing tablets with increasingly aggressive hardware specifications ahead of the holiday season from OEMs such as HTC, Samsung, RIM and others, we believe Apple will continue to dominate tablet sell-through market share.”

In other words, even if iPadversaries match Apple feature for feature and price for price, they’re still at a disadvantage because consumers in the market for a tablet often limit their choice to the iPad. Tough to sell someone on Research In Motion’s PlayBook or Samsung’s Galaxy Tab when they’re standing in the Apple Store.

For this and other reasons, Walkley has increased his calendar 2011 iPad sales estimates to 39.2 million from 37.8 million and raised his calendar 2012 estimates to 59 million from 56 million.