Apple: iPad 2 demand is "amazing"
"Demand for the next generation iPad 2 has been amazing." That's what Apple's spokesperson Trudy Miller told The Loop, and it's consistent with everyone's anecdotal evidence.
Apple released the iPad 2 at 5 PM on Friday evening. Long lines of customers greeted the launch, hoping to be one of the first to own the hugely anticipated device.
According to analyst checks, the iPad 2 sold out at many locations before the end of its first night of availability. On Sunday, Apple's online store showed a wait of 3-4 weeks to get any model of the new iPad 2.
"We are working hard to get iPad 2 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible," said Muller.Apple has not specified how many iPad 2s sold over the weekend. According to the Wall Street Journal, most analysts predict Apple sold between 400,000 and 600,000 units in the tablet's first three days on the market. Some analysts were even more bullish.
"We would not be surprised to see Apple sell closer to 1 million iPad 2s in the opening weekend," said Wedbush Securities analyst Scott Sutherland.
The iPad 2 launched at approximately 10,000 retail locations across the United States. For the iPad 2 to cross the 1 million unit mark over the weekend, each location would have needed to sell an average of 100 units. While this number sounds reasonably achievable, it's not clear that Apple provided every location with 100 iPads to sell. According to Reuters, Best Buy on Friday said some of its locations sold through their iPad 2 supplies within the first 10 minutes.
"We didn't expect anything close to this," said Gene Munster, technology analyst for Piper Jaffray. "iPads are sold out across virtually all channels. We were unable to find any availability."After surveying retailers over the weekend, Munster believes the iPad 2 was completely sold out on Saturday, and sales of the iPad 2 could have been higher if more of them had been in stock.
Munster also surveyed about 200 iPad 2 owners over the weekend. Of those surveyed, 70 percent were first-time iPad buyers, 51 percent owned a Mac, 47 percent purchased a model with 3G and 41 percent bought an iPad 2 with 32 GB of storage.
No word on how many people bought Smart Covers.
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"Demand for the next generation iPad 2 has been amazing." That's what Apple's spokesperson Trudy Miller told The Loop, and it's...
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What is the application being used to display statistics in the iPad art for this article?
March 14 2011 at 4:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYeah, start with Puerto Rico...
March 14 2011 at 3:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySure it is. Let's make more suggestions that the demand is unusual and unexpected in order to offset the reality that Apple's management dropped the ball and simply did not get sufficient product into the supply chain in time.
The planning of the release of the first ipad was far superior: pre-orders and coordinated deliveries resulted in a smoother release and many, many more happy consumers.
Now what could have been different between the release of ipad v1 and v2 to result in such poor management, severe shortage of product to market, and general lack of vision?
Oh yeah.. Steve wasn't in charge...
now get me my damn ipad2!
It's not magical :( ?
March 14 2011 at 2:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySo, what I am reading here, is instead of this trickle-ship theory, they could have gotten a guaranteed sell-out.
I understand the thought behind trickle-ship. They think they will get more people in to the stores where they "might" buy other items. But let's be real - if someone got turned away, chances are they aren't going to keep coming back, every day, to *try* to get one. People who do that are 10%~ers. In my mind, Apple is at best deferring the sales to the 90%~ers and at worse losing those sales entirely. And A-Stores are perpetually packed anyway, and plenty of folks would still come to play with the Ipad2 demo units, and many of those folks would probably order, even if they had to wait for shipment.
This is why the saying exists: a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. If Apple just shipped all it could to it's Apple Stores (forget the Best Buy/ATT/WM/Target farce) and sold every damn unit they had (along with smart covers, etc) they'd book those sales now. Then they could just put everyone else that wanted to get them in to backorder, and there you go. Everyone is happy, nobody is getting frustrated chasing their tails, and Apple books 100% of the sales in-house.
Well, I for one, will not even try to out-smart Apple's marketing techniques. All of the "big boys" have tried, and they can't even come close.
Stop trying to 2nd-guess. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback!
I'm not trying to outsmart them, I just see room for improvement!
March 14 2011 at 4:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI've been to almost every Denver Apple Store, Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart and I can assure you that after driving for 2 hours today, none I visited have iPad2. The most frustrating part is the inconsistent messages from the Apple Store people.
March 14 2011 at 2:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOf course, not having preorders makes those lines long, which certainly helps with perception and media coverage. I think they're supply constrained and wanted to maximize the splash.
March 14 2011 at 2:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIntentionally constrained supply works well for "limited-time" or "exclusive" products like a special edition iPod or an invitation-only beta. But it's not a typical Apple marketing or release strategy for a device intended for mass consumption. Ideally, every customer who wanted an iPad at launch would have been able to buy one at launch.
Long lines are always great PR. So is announcing a massively huge first weekend sales number. I doubt Apple intentionally constrained the supply of iPad 2 to generate buzz. That risks frustrating customers and giving people time to change their purchase decision or invest in a rival product.
It sounds like sales of the iPad 2 generally exceeded analyst expectations. It's possible Apple also underestimated demand. Also, the planet has a limited supply of raw materials and manufacturing capacity. Magical or not, there is a limit to how many iPads can be produced in any given timeframe.
No word yet on AT&T vs. Verizon.
March 14 2011 at 2:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replywords that should be banned from press releases, as their repeated use makes them irrelevant: "amazing" and "staggering"
March 14 2011 at 2:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAlthough, in this case I confess to being amazed by the demand. Who would have thought there was this much pent up desire for a product that isn't really a huge leap ahead of its predecessor? Certainly I'm not giving up my first generation iPad and prefer to wait for iPad 3.
So Trudy Miller's comment that "Demand for the next generation iPad 2 has been amazing" - seems spot on to me?
I think that Apple is pretty aware of which words should and which should not be in press releases.
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