back to article Apple iPad run rate hits 2m units a month

A small snippet of information this, but Apple has ordered enough components to assemble as many as 2.4m iPads this month - and is expected to order the same quantity on a monthly basis through the summer. The figure comes from Taiwanese newssite DigiTimes' research wing, and is a strong sign that the iPad is proving to be a …

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  1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    3G iPads

    My 'research' from asking the one Apple reseller in my town is that by far the majority of their sales have been the 64GB 3G - which I found very surprising. If this is true, then there are going to be some very happy chappies at Apple, and almost as much so at the mobile networks who'll be selling 2 contracts to their iPhone customers (already on a more expensive tariff).

    I've had mine 2 weeks (32GB WiFi) and haven't wanted to use 3G once so far. So I think I made the right choice.

  2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Bad news for netbook manufacturers?

    "[...] it's six million machines they won't themselves sell." Most definitely not.

    Although it is for sure that some (but not all!) iPad buyers would have bought a netbook if iPad had not existed. On the other hand, the hype around iPad might also bring netbooks to the attention of new customers and increase the market for both tablets and netbooks.

    Who knows?

  3. Dazed and Confused

    summer hols

    Time to buy shares in mobile companies then.

    Don't these things take mini-sims. So the normal approach of going into the Vodafone(or who ever) kiosk at the airport and buying a local data SIM for a few Euros isn't likely to work. I wonder how fast people will hit the new limit of data roam costs. For data there isn't really any reason not to just use a local SIM, let's face it you don't care about the phone number.

  4. ThomH

    iOS it is then

    Apple have managed to transition their App Store and iOS platform from an area that is largely becoming commiditised again (well, one area — there's still nobody really competing on iPods) to a new area where they indisputably rule the roost. I guess fragmentation is an issue, but barely one while the individual products are relatively iconic and each lives in the market for a whole calendar year. So, you know, good for them.

    As for me? I really like the browsing experience on an iPad, but I don't like it to the tune of £420. I'd been hoping they'd have to embarrassingly cut whatever $200 is in pounds from the price a few months after launch as on the original iPhone, but it sounds like that won't be happening.

  5. Martin
    FAIL

    False dichotomy alert!

    "DisplaySearch's figures put the combined total number of netbooks and tablets at just under 10m units worldwide these days - where it's been for the past four quarters. If Apple does shift 6m iPads then that's bad news for netbook manufacturers - it's six million machines they won't themselves sell."

    That's the same sort of argument that assumes that every illegal mp3 download is a lost CD sale. I'm surprised at you.

    iPad users and netbook users are not the same people - an iPad purchase is not by definition a lost netbook sale. Apart from anything else, iPad users are generally a lot richer....

    1. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Not all things to all people.

      iPad users are probably a lot richer. If you don't think anything of blowing $800 on an iPad then spending some extra money on an Archos or a Netbook probably doesn't bother you either. Consumers may still those devices for what they enable. While it's certainly possible that Apple could knock off those two types of use cases completely, they don't seem very interested in persuing them.

      iPads will continue to be very good at doing a few highly focused things while ignoring some things entirely.

      A netbook is nearly disposable when compared to an iPad.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Almost on-topic post..

    ...Anyone seen what a 7 month old baby does with an ipad?

    It's pretty hilarious, and I wish I'd youtubed it, but what struck me was how quickly she was able to master some very simple gestures...swiping, dragging and even pinching.

    Either she's a future rocket scientist (and if any of her genes are mine, that's unlikely), or touch interfaces are pretty damned intuiative. And that's appealing to the unwashed masses who have no idea what a command line is.

    Whether Apple stay "the leader" or not (and it's doing a sterling job of shooting itself in the foot there right now) I'd put good money on slates/pads/touch phones being here to stay. There will always be a place for keyboards and command lines - there better be, since my mortgage depends on it - but I'm not going to be surprised to see consumer netbooks (the closest competitor to slates/pads) decline over the coming years as users migrate to slates, and the slates genre evolve and diversify.

    Note the emphasis on 'Consumer' here.

  7. D@v3
    Jobs Horns

    anyone else slightly freaked out

    by how 2m units in a month breaks down to average daily sales?

    using a 30 day month, your looking at 66666 units a day

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oops I did it again

    The mobile cos tried to sell netbooks with bundled 3G modems or in some cases proper 3G internal cards for the last few years. All of these flopped in the most spectacular fashion.

    This is not surprising as none of them could be bothered with user experience, the modem had to have "yet another applet" to drive it instead of working out of the box. They could not be bothered to spend even a penny of their advertising budget to push it and most importantly they thought that they are too expensive at around 350 a pop.

    Apple succeeding where the mobile operators failed and selling a gadget for 200 more than the price mobile cos considered as too high. That is a non-story. It is a daily occurance of what should called "Telco Innovation 2.0".

    Frankly, the only thing I am surprised at here is that O2 and other mobile co's marketing departments have not been given their marching orders by now. Actually not surprised that either. Delusions are contagious. Delusions that marketing, bundling and whalesong can succeed over technology and polished UE are probably some of the most contagious of all.

    Epic FAIL. Not of Apple that is, of all the mobile cos.

  9. Jo 5
    Coat

    dont agree with the 1:1

    I just bought a netbook (well a lightweight notebook: lenovo edge 13 entry level) and I am buying an ipad as well. I dont mind road warrioring both together in the same Targus as tigether they wiegh less than what I had to carry around for the last 15 yrs (tosh's made from lead).

    So I will have a combined total of 15 hours battery, iphoneOS, Win7 and Ubuntu (dual boot).

    Best of all worlds. I think alot of ppl who plan to buy a netbook might also shoot for an ipad

    mine is the one with 2 massive pockets i guess

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    "Bad news for netbook makers"

    or" Bad news for Apple"..

    As thinner, lighter, better android based tablets are on the way VERY soon...

    http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/lg-announces-plans-for-android-tablet-701033

    "As for the LG Android tablet, LG is boasting that it "will deliver vastly superior performance than other similar devices currently on the market while still managing to be thinner and lighter than competing devices.""

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Yawn

      Wake me up when the product ships. If it ever does.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Double Yawn

      A friend of my wife was very happy to tell me of all the better and cheaper music players that would hand Apple its arse on a plate around the time the iPod really got going a year after launch. Still waiting.

      She was so, so happy when the iPhone was released as she could call and tell me how Apple had made a huge mistake and it would die a horrible death because the other manufacturers would easily make better phones. Still waiting.

      She saw an iPad I had ready for a client and said "what idiot brought that?"

      She's my wife's friend so I've just smiled each time, but what is it about Apple that makes small-thinking people fly in the face of history and deride everything Apple does, especially when they do it so well and are so hugely successful at it. None of them seem capable of looking at the stunning sales numbers and the millions of very happy customers who don't have to worry about software drivers, viruses and incompatibilities, and who are more than happy to use a properly designed interface.

      And for proof, just look at how the iPhone amd now the iPad dominate web data use compared to the number of other web 'capable' devices out there. Could it be that by taking the trouble to do the job (pun intended) PROPERLY, with SKILL, guided by the proper use of the term 'Innovation', Apple really does lead the world.

      Oh, and for the geeks who cry 'Walled Garden", Steve Jobs recently made the point that you should look at the situation BEFORE the iPhone came out and compare the real 'Walled Gardens" then to what is available now. Nothing is stopping the other manufacturers creating Apps Stores for their products, but it's not Apple's fault if they fail miserably despite having an excellent example to hand.

  11. Paul_Murphy

    Netbooks - back to school?

    Funky/ trendy they may be, but I can't see pupils wanting to type out their notes, essays and the like on a virtual screen.

    Surely the markets for these two products can't overlap that much - as far as I can see the iPad is primarily for at home surfing on the couch/bed, and a netbook/ laptop would be for inputting: blogs, research etc.

    ttfn

  12. Matthew Gardner

    ipad replace netbooks

    I think this mis-leading I did read in the past netbook sales drop then peak before chrimbo, and the drop was same this year but ipad sold on top of that figure.

    Some people who would buy a netbook will now buy an ipad but not the majority, as the cost of an ipad is same as that of a laptop not netbook.

    The majority of those buying netbooks are being bought for kids or people working away, so the kids will still be bought netbooks or laptops, those working away will buy ipads or netbooks.

    ipad are good but no replacement for lappy and are competition for netbook but a netbook can still do more than an ipad.

    ipads are good but will not take place for the majority of netbooks they will be bought as a gadget in own right.

  13. Watashi

    No need

    Shock, horror - wealthy people spend more money on stuff than they need to. I guess this story does just about count as newsworthy, but it's a bit cheecky because we'll presumaby get exactly the same story when the real sales figures come out.

    I suppose El Reg needs to meet its weekly quota of stories along the following lines:

    Apple products sell really well

    Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac

    Microsoft software is full of holes

    Adobe software is even more full of holes

    The UK NuLab government is spying on you (now turned into UK gov IT projects hugely over-priced)

    Climate Change is a conspiracy

    Google wants to run the world

    Something rude about porn or sex

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Watashi

      "I suppose El Reg needs to meet its weekly quota of stories along the following lines:

      Apple products sell really well

      Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac

      Microsoft software is full of holes

      Adobe software is even more full of holes

      The UK NuLab government is spying on you (now turned into UK gov IT projects hugely over-priced)

      Climate Change is a conspiracy

      Google wants to run the world

      Something rude about porn or sex"

      So, which of the above keep *you* coming back again and again?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Apple still misses the target?

    Why, oh why, wouldn't they make a netbook that wasn't IOS based and instead MacOSX based.

    It must all be about control by Jobs...

    For them to have popularized "touch screen interfaces or touch screen gestures" it really is downright reprehensible that they don't ship a MacBook with a touchscreen, maybe that is what they should do with the Airbook?

    1. Carniphage
      Thumb Up

      Not a miss, a bullseye!

      Why not make a netbook? Because in business terms they make less than no money. HP makes about $20 profit per sale. And not only that, but Netbooks undermine sales of full-featured laptops.

      Desktop OSes don't support touch, because EVERY SINGLE APPLICATION would need recoding to support it. If you don't recode, you end up with what Microsoft did with Windows tablets; a user-interface mess that confuses users and has them wishing for a keyboard and a mouse after 10 minutes.

      The fact is, that the industry left an open goal, and Apple have scored.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    re: Double Yawn

    I don't think you want to open your eyes. There are hundreds of MP3 players that are better than an iPod touch.

    I think Jobs has trained you to close your eyes (and ears) to them.

    Seriously if you ever listened to a decent player (like the recent Walkmans or Creative Zens) you will wonder how something that sounds so shite can actually sell. The fabric of your world will then fall apart when it finally dawns on your that ***MOST*** consumers buy products based on marketing, rather than technical prowess or performance, and that by actually owning one yourself, you too have been sucked in by pretty coloured plastic and fake and misleading Apple advertising.

    1. Jay 2

      Works for me

      They might have got their act together now, but my girlfriend's Creative Zen V is a nasty piece of plastic user unfriendlyness.

      I'll stick to my iPod which sounds good enough to my cloth ears. No Apple earphones though, as they are the work of the devil!

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