Apple's real iPad competitor wasn't the Fire?
It was its own new 4S iPhone.
Apple's biggest iPad rival: the iPhone 4S
by Roger Cheng February 16, 2012 6:24 AM PST
"Research firm IHS says money that would have normally been devoted to the iPad during the holiday quarter actually went to the newly released iPhone 4S.
Apple was its own worst enemy in the fourth quarter.
The biggest competitor to the iPad 2 was the iPhone 4S, market researcher IHS said today in a report on tablet sales in the fourth quarter. The firm concluded that despite other tablet options, what curtailed sales of the iPad 2 the most was customers committing their dollars to the iPhone 4S, which was released in October.
Clearly, the competition didn't hurt Apple too much. The company reported selling 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter, although that was overshadowed by the whopping 37 million iPhones it sold in the same period. Despite a raft of new entrants in the tablet business, Apple is still the clear leader.
Its leadership position, however, did erode slightly in the fourth quarter. Its market share slipped a bit to 57 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 64 percent in the third quarter.
Apple's iPad sales, while strong, fell below IHS's estimates. But don't blame the outside competitors like the Kindle Fire.
"The primary alternative wasn't the Kindle Fire--which debuted to solid sales in the fourth quarter--but Apple's own iPhone 4S smartphone," said Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS."
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-573...?tag=cnetRiver
My guess is that the Apple lemmings, as they leap off the cliff into the sea of this year's Air Jordan fanatics, and 3D TVs, and other cutting edge "acquirers," have only so much coin they can hurl into the Apple coffers. It must be agonizing for both the Lemmings (Apple customers) and to the Apple company that there just isn't any more money. Could this be the reason why Apple iTV hasn't taken off? The loyal and faithful have reached the limits on their credit cards? Their grandmother's egg money jar has been emptied? Their children's' college funds have been plundered?