iPad Also Cannibalizing Mac Sales – Analyst Sees it as ‘a Good Thing’
Even though analysts are concluding that the news is all good, it seems that the iPad may actually be impacting other Apple products (most notably, the Mac). This makes sense of course when you consider the market shift toward mobile computing and the decreasing popularity of the traditional PC. Apple may be happy with this news given that they have essentially just replaced one revenue stream with another but it is a little more significant a trend for other manufacturers that do not also float an industry leading tablet like the iPad.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, believes that this cannibalization of the Mac was inevitable even going so far as to cite references that Apple has given stating this trend on their own. Of course, at the same time the iPad sales figures begin to eclipse those of the Mac, those same Mac computers are rising in popularity over other PC platforms (like those that are Microsoft Windows-based).
Apple CEO Tim Cook even went so far as to state during a conference call in January of 2011 that “if this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good.”
Munster is predicting that the current combined sales figures (for the iPad and Mac computers) currently amounting to around $62 billion in 2012 may be as high as $119 billion by 2015 if they continue to grow at their current rate. This prediction begins with an expected 66 million iPads delivered in 2012.
Where once people felt that Apple was unaffordable, now the iPad and iPhone have them convinced that the price differences are worth it. This mindset changing in parallel to the shift in home computing needs where fewer people care to have a PC beyond their tablet narrows the price gap influence significantly.
Of course, Apple also enjoys considerable brand loyalty which translates into additional sales potential every time an iPad or iPhone are sold –a benefit that few other manufacturers see in any regard.
[via AppleInsider]
