My newest column on Techpinions:
The next time you see a forecast of Apple losing its dominance in a market, ask yourself what the competitors are doing to differentiate themselves from Apple. That answer is all you need to know.
Apple’s iPad will be dominant until…
Jim, that’s “dominant,” not “dominate.”
Fixed thanks.
On your site, too!
First, these marketshare figures that everyone focuses on are often misunderstood. The figures published by these research houses are based on the broadest definition of the market, which provides little insight as to how competitors are faring head-to-head.
Many point out that the iPad has been gradually losing market share- meaning competition is catching up. That’s totally flawed.
The iPad market share has been increasing when one views the market correctly by defining it as products that are perfect/near substitutes which occupy the consideration set of the consumer in eval/purchase decision.
For example, Mercedes doesn’t care about it’s marketshare for the entire auto industry, just its share relative to BMW, Audi, etc. If sales of dirt cheap cars in China & India are exploding leading for the entire industry to grow, Audi’s & BMW’s market share will decline under the scope of the overall industry. It becomes easy for one to just look at the market share numbers and see that BMW is declining and conclude that it’s “losing” to the competition, when in fact BMW share vs competiors may have drastically increased.
Back to tablet market. The first wave of iPad killers touted superier specs & experience, thus priced more/equal to iPad. The Touchpad, Playbook, Xoom, Galaxy Tab etc. were complete failures. Practically zero sales initially. Sales picked up (actually occured) after a modest $100-$150 discount to iPad, however still trailed iPad sales 100-1. It took $300-$400 price cuts on Touchpads and Playbooks to generate any type of steady demand, albeit quit small. iPad share for the entire tablet industry declines. People take this to mean iPad is “losing” & competition is catching up, when in fact Apple just drove all its competitors from the market. People buying these discounted non-ipad devices never considered buying an iPad in the first place because they don’t think they need or would use it to justify the high price. At $99 – $199 price, consumers begin to consider a product they didn’t even want in the first place. Thus, the tablet market broadens with introduction of cheap priced segment. An entirely new tablet market emerges because of the failures of trying to compete with iPad. iPad’s true market share has gone to 100%. Consumers seeking a good tablet experience buy iPads. Apple’s near 100% share in enterprise market validates this. In short, non-iPad tablets have only gained traction due to cheap prices, expanding the market to new customer segment that Apple is going after. It’s plausible that cheap tablets will provide experience to those skittish/not-interested in technology to then desire a more robust tablet experience and willingness to pay for it.
Already everyone is saying Apple’s rumored small iPad is a response to competition from the low-end segment which is eroding market share. I will bet anything that If Apple releases smaller iPad, it won’t be because it is going after cheap consumers. I would bet anything Apple is considering a smaller version because enterprises, education, etc need a smaller form factor for specialized use and cheap/small Android tablets won’t suffice. In short, they want iOS because of the ecosystem as well as solid hardware. iPads are widely used by managers for real-time dashboards/reporting pulling from SAP / cloud database etc. However, it’s only realtime if the data has been entered. Getting orders & reports from the field entered into database quicker enhances the backend analytics. Current iPad is kinda bulky to carry around in the field, i.e. device half the size of iPad is much more feasible for restaurant waiter, or meter reader, or Apple Retail store employee.
I’m sure smaller iPad would be more attractive for the K-6 education.
While I view a smaller iPad as real possibility, don’t expect it to be as cheap as the others. $299 minimum. I would think $329 or even $349 is more likely.
Apple doesn’t need to make a new model to compete with products they are already way outselling. And basically every reason you claim Apple might make a smaller model for is already using the current one. And no one has any issues with the size etc.
I think folks are going to eat crow on the whole “Apple needs a smaller iPad to stay ahead” and will find that not only will Apple not make the mythical 7 inch iPad, when Amazon etc try to make a 10 inch model to beat out Apple they will be no more successful with it than they are now with their smaller ones
oh I don’t know, seems to me that both words fit with any talk about Apple and the tablet world.