Morgan Stanley: iPad mini cannibalization "overblown"

A survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers was published today by Morgan Stanley and AlphaWise, showing that although sales of the iPad mini are cannibalizing sales of some of the full-size iPads, concerns over the trend are "overblown." That was the opinion of Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, who said that the numbers show that Apple's risk over cannibalization by the mini is "manageable."

The numbers she's referring to indicate that 47 percent of iPad mini purchasers are new to Apple, which is slightly less than the 56 percent number for the full-size iPad. There were other positive signs for Apple; the survey showed that about the same percentage of potential buyers -- 50 percent -- plan on purchasing an iPad over other tablets as they did in December 2011. The news isn't as rosy for Amazon's Kindle Fire, which saw a 5 percent drop in respondents planning a purchase.

Microsoft's new Surface tablet is apparently interesting to 12 percent of the respondents, while Samsung's tablets showed a 7 percent rise in purchase intentions over December 2011. Google's Nexus tablet also showed a solid rise of 6 percent, while all other tablets saw a huge drop in interest from 24 percent last year to only 5 percent in 2012.