Analyst says Christmas may not be so green for the iPad
There is at least one Scrooge this holiday season, and it's Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw. While there had been estimates of 6 million iPad sales by the end of the year, Kumar has pulled back to an estimate of 5 million because the iPad, and other tablet PCs are just not "must have" purchases.
Other issues may be difficulties in the supply chain, and the analyst notes that Dell and Samsung are cutting back production due to lower-than-predicted sales. Apple has expanded retail outlets who sell the iPad, including Target and Verizon. It's also been noted by some observers Kumar himself that sales of the 11.6-inch MacBook Air could be cannibalizing the Pad (emphasis on the 'could be' as opposed to 'shown to be with hard evidence).
Apple has estimated sales for 2010 of 4.9 million iPads. Of course it's all speculation for now. The new iOS 4.2 could stimulate tablet sales, and it should be noted that Apple almost always exceeds predictions. Even Mr. Kumar is still bullish on Apple, and rates the stock as a "market outperform."
We should note for the record that Kumar's scorecard as a predictor of market trends and product announcements for Apple is, to put it mildly, quite spotty. Take his iPad estimates with the requisite large grain of salt.
[via the Mac Observer]
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There is at least one Scrooge this holiday season, and it's Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw. While there had been estimates of 6...
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My parents offered to get me one for Christmas but I said no thanks. There's no point in getting one now when the next generation will be released some time early next year. I'd rather just get gift cards to save up for the new one. It's a shame they set it on this release schedule because it would make a great Holiday gift but anyone who knows Apple's schedules knows better.
November 15 2010 at 7:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis Kumar? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366551/
November 15 2010 at 6:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyNo, that one has some sense.
November 15 2010 at 6:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyKumar must have some hands on the strings of people here at TUAW considering they keep posting his crappy columns.
November 15 2010 at 5:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyNo, not at all. This was an error on the part of a shift editor (the other article from the weekend was sourced inadvertently as well). Trust me, Kumar is on our s**t list and you won't see his predictions on here again. I hate that it happened once, then twice, but it won't happen a third time.
November 15 2010 at 6:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWe recently conducted an analysis on analysts and discovered that Ashok Kumar is guilty of shenanigans. I'd love to see the focus groups he used for his 'study'. They did focus groups, right? No? Telephone surveys? No? Of course not - no minor company like this is going to spend money to accurately research something as innocuous and well, stupid, as ipad sales. It's far easier to just 'guess' and maybe make a few million when the stock suffers the predictable dip.
Raise your hand if you think Ashok Kumar probably doesn't own a single apple product....
All of you are on crack, if you think an iPad is a must have device. While it is a great device to have, it's certainly not a must have. With the price point of the MacBook Air, that would be a much better device to throw money at than an iPad. Also, I would say people are suckers who buy an iPad when iPad 2 is just so right around the corner.
November 15 2010 at 3:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhy does Ashok Kumar still have a job as a stock analyst at
Rodman & Renshaw?
Maybe accurate predictions are not important to this company?
Does Ashok Kumar not have any relatives clamoring for an iPad?
To say that an iPad is "just not a "must have" purchase" is bone-headed. Ashok must no have any kids!
If the iPad is a "must have" device, then everyone who wants one may already have one, but we shall see. I already hear people saying that we're close enough to 1 year since the announcement, you might as well wait and buy iPad 2.0 early next year. Both of those sound like legitimate reasons why iPads might not take off this holiday season. Still, I don't hear desire for the iPad dying down (but then maybe that's because I get my news from this site), and I have a hard time seeing MacBook Air's eating into iPad sales. Seems like you either want a laptop or you want a tablet. You might want both, but they don't seem to be interchangeable devices. No one was buying an iPad before just because they couldn't get a decent Mac laptop, where they?
What are iPad sales at now? They may not be this year's Zhu Zhu pets, but I can't see their sales doing anything but improving as we near the end of the year.
This (http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/kumar_track_record) Ashok Kumar? Forgive me, but I'm skeptical.
November 15 2010 at 3:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyKumar's track record on all things Apple is pretty bad...
http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/kumar_track_record
LOL. Investment analysts are second only to investment bankers in utility to the economy. There are two broad types: the really bad analysts (like Kumar) who can't get a thing right, and the really bad analysts (insert name here) who hit on a couple of lucky guesses, get their name plastered in the media and make ridiculous sums of money and when they can't keep it up, resort to bribery, corruption, insider trading to keep the champagne flowing.
What a load of **** these guys are.
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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