Originally Posted by calico_pie:
“Is that how "poor demand" is defined these days?
Anything that you can buy in a shop?
Weird.”
Given the issues with supply/demand of past iPads, and other Apple products, I think it's a fair point. It's not "normal" for iPad supply to be so plentiful at launch.
Think back to the iPad 3 pre-orders... Within a day of them going live, pre-orders slipped from having a guaranteed release day delivery to it being 2 or 3 weeks
after release. And many of those of us who did manage to order one in time for release day delivery had to submit our orders several times before they went through because of the demand on Apple's website.
iPad Air? No ordering issues on release day, and now we have passed the launch weekend it is still shipping
within 24 hours of being ordered, plus there are many reports of there being lots of stock in Apple Retail Stores and 3rd party stores.
Want to order an iPhone 5S, though? "2-3 weeks" if you order online, and pot-luck if you want to get one in store.
Perhaps it's actually the case that Apple has increased supply, rather than the case that demand has decreased... but then how come Apple always seems to have trouble having a sufficient supply of other products, including the 5S?
Plus it's a fact that iPad sales have slowed down, and it has been losing market share. In the
4th Quarter 2012 Apple sold 14 million iPads, up 26% from the
4th Quarter 2011 (11.12 million, 166% up from Q4 2010).
The
4th Quarter 2013 (the one just gone)? 14.1 million, around a 0.7% increase. Part of that is probably due to the expectation of a 5th generation iPad along with a Retina iPad Mini, but even so, it isn't having the kind of growth it used to have.
iPad 3: 3 million units during the launch weekend -
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012...e-Million.html
iPad 4 + iPad Mini
combined: 3 million units during their launch weekend -
http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile...ipad-4-1110144
... with the Mini outselling the 4 -
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57...e-retina-ipad/
It'll be interesting to see the launch weekend sales for the Air.