An editorial on iPad sales and competition

[Graham]

Originally Posted by molman

What-if's are hard. Maybe WebOS/Palm would have done better without Android in the market. Maybe Windows Phone 7 would have picked up more market share, and RIM lost a little less. Maybe Nokia might have made a go of MeeGo/Maemo or the next revision of Symbian.... what-if?

Oh, come on. You've got a massive runaway success in the iPhone with a huge amount of mindshare. Are you really telling me that you believe that without Android most of those new smartphone buyers (at the higher end) would have gone to RIM and Win 7, and Apple would still be sitting on 18.5% at this point?

Graham

[kartu]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I think the point is that Apple's share is up from 13.5% in 2010.

True, but compare it to Samsung. New player. No hype in media. Went to nearly the same 18% from much more modest 5%.

Originally Posted by molman

The only direction you can go is down when you are nearly the only one in the market...

As with can see with, say, Intel or Amazon Kindle or iPods. Oh, wait...

It went from 94% to 74% this year, without players like Samsung (this one alone can beat it) and Sony even entering the market.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by kartu

True, but compare it to Samsung. New player. No hype in media. Went to nearly the same 18% from much more modest 5%.


As with can see with, say, Intel or Amazon Kindle or iPods. Oh, wait...

It went from 94% to 74% this year, without players like Samsung (this one alone can beat it) and Sony even entering the market.

a) it didn't go to 74% (see above, that's comparing Apple sales to Android shipments).

b) Samsung was in the market with the 7" Tab, one of the most successful of the tablets.

Graham

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by kartu

Tablets:
Apple went from 94% last year to 74% this year.
Tablet market is expected to quadruple during next 3-4 years. Forecast for Apple in 2015 is 44% of the market. Source.

Note that those numbers are for units shipped, not sold. Well, for iPads shipped and sold are almost the same - Apple've been selling as many as they can make and ship, and only recently have they been able to keep up with demand.

I don't think the same is true of other tablets. But hey - we can check. At least for Android tablets. There's this handy chart, updated 1st August when I checked, that gives the percentages of the different Android OS devices that have accessed Android Market recently. Android 3.x (i.e. Android Tablets) account for 1.3% of the total.

So if we know how many Android devices in total there are out there, we'd not how many Android Tablets are being used. In mid July, it was announced that it was on 135 million devices. Let's round that up to 140 million to take it to the 1st August, and let's round that 1.3% to 1.5%.

Then at the beginning of August, we can, very generously, say that there are 2.1 million Android Tablets out there.

In the last quarter for which we have figures, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads. If All the Android Tablets being used were sold in that same quarter, it would still give Apple over 80% of the market.

It's most unlikely (impossible) for Apple to keep the massive (95%) market share they had when they were essentially the only good tablet on the market.

But I suspect that people who expect the iPad market share to fairly quickly drop to under 50% are going to be wrong.

Look at MP3 players. Apple still has the vast majority of MP3 player sales, many years after the iPod range was first launched.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Then at the beginning of August, we can, very generously, say that there are 2.1 million Android Tablets out there.

2.1 million Honeycomb tablets, but there are plenty of Android tablets out there running 2.x.

There is an analysis based on the screen size of Android tablets somewhere, I'll try to fish it out as I can't remember how it was analysed. I think we mentioned it up thread somewhere...

Graham

[molman]

Originally Posted by Graham

Oh, come on. You've got a massive runaway success in the iPhone with a huge amount of mindshare. Are you really telling me that you believe that without Android most of those new smartphone buyers (at the higher end) would have gone to RIM and Win 7, and Apple would still be sitting on 18.5% at this point?

Graham

No I'm not saying Apple would necessarily have the same percentage of Smartphone market share (up or down). I am however saying that you can't infer anything much because everything would be so different to the point that speculation gains little. You can't pull one variable out and expect the world to be the same minus what you've removed, everything changes.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Graham

2.1 million Honeycomb tablets, but there are plenty of Android tablets out there running 2.x.

There is an analysis based on the screen size of Android tablets somewhere, I'll try to fish it out as I can't remember how it was analysed. I think we mentioned it up thread somewhere...

Graham

Oh, come now. Is anyone still selling Android 2.1 tablets?

Analysis of screen sizes is here: http://developer.android.com/resourc...d/screens.html

1.2% of android devices have xlarge screens, roughly equivalent to the iPad.

[molman]

@pdurrant: Are you just regurgitating Gruber Posts?
http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by molman

@pdurrant: Are you just regurgitating Gruber Posts?
http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance

No. I have used his links into the google/android info, but all the text and calculations are my own.

Do you think I've made a mistake, and that Android Tablet market share is significantly more than the upper limit of 20% I've suggested?

[Graham]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Oh, come now..

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Is anyone still selling Android 2.1 tablets?.

Well, there are still quite a lot mentioned in threads here. And the market share we're discussing includes those 7" tablets.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Analysis of screen sizes is here: http://developer.android.com/resourc...d/screens.html

1.2% of android devices have xlarge screens, roughly equivalent to the iPad.

Thanks, that was it. So, if, for the sake of argument, we assume that large and xlarge screens count as tablets that would be 4.3% of the Android devices that are currently active (assuming market hits in the last 7 days can be counted as a reasonable sample of all Android tablets), so on the 140 million that would give us a top end figure of about 6 million tablets.

Apple had sold 15 million iPads by March, and then 10 million more reported for Q2 2011, so we're looking at upward of 25 million.

Hmm. Fair enough. That would put Android up at 24% assuming all those large screens were counted as tablets (many will be large phones, I think, but at what point does it become a tablet).

Graham

[molman]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No. I have used his links into the google/android info, but all the text and calculations are my own.

Do you think I've made a mistake, and that Android Tablet market share is significantly more than the upper limit of 20% I've suggested?

I think it is nice to cite when appropriating the essence of someone else’s work.

As to the conclusion of market share, who knows. There is such a large margin for error with all the numbers your using and assumptions your are making.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Graham

Thanks, that was it. So, if, for the sake of argument, we assume that large and xlarge screens count as tablets that would be 4.3% of the Android devices that are currently active (assuming market hits in the last 7 days can be counted as a reasonable sample of all Android tablets), so on the 140 million that would give us a top end figure of about 6 million tablets.

Apple had sold 15 million iPads by Marc, and then 10 million more reported for Q2 2011, so we're looking at upward of 25 million.

Hmm. Fair enough. That would put Android up at 24% assuming all those large screens were counted as tablets (many will be large phones, I think, but at what point does it become a tablet).

Even granting all large screens as tablets (large is anything 640x480 pixels or more!) 6 million out of 31 million is just under 20% of the installed base, not 24%

And, of course, if we can count 640x480pixels as a tablet, 4th generation iPod Touches and iPhone 4s count...

[kartu]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Note that those numbers are for units shipped, not sold.

No. It's an IHS forecast and you have no idea what it is based on.

And no, you can't replace it with wild assumptions based on number of times someone accessed google market place during 2 weeks of August 2011.

Well, for iPads shipped and sold are almost the same - Apple've been selling as many as they can make and ship, and only recently have they been able to keep up with demand.

That's just an urban legend, which is, besides, irrelevant.

[molman]

You boys are also forgetting 'other' tablets in your guestimates. Those atom based tablets must be knocking off a percentage at least

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by kartu

That's just an urban legend, which is, besides, irrelevant.

They were always stocked in the Netherlands as far as I've seen.

BTW, did anyone find percentages in Europe for the ipad? I know that they sell better in the US, and that there are more customers there.