It’s already tax day—how much more bad news can we take? (See how the Macalope keeps it fresh? Topical references. Boom.)
Well, Adam Levine-Weinberg is here to tell us “Why Apple’s iPad Is in Big Trouble” (tip o’ the antlers to MacJournals).
Less than two years ago, Apple’s iPad absolutely dominated the tablet space.
Oh, man, watching the other tablet makers trip over their monstrously oversized clown shoes was so funny. Alas, now Apple only absolutely dominates in tablet profit share.
Wait, isn’t that all anyone should really care about?
Not only has Apple’s market share lead crumbled, but iPad sales growth has also come to a crashing halt.
If by “come to a crashing halt” you mean 14 percent year-over-year growth for the last quarter then, yes, they came “to a crashing halt.”
Unless Apple can deliver vastly improved iPads later this year, the iPad’s growth days are over.
Fortunately, Apple vastly improves the iPads every year, so all good, right?
Where did all the iPad buyers go?
Uh … into the Apple Store to buy iPads? Is this a trick question?
It’s hard to imagine right now, but just two years ago, Apple was growing iPad revenue by more than 60% and iPad unit sales by 80% …
Yeah, that was nuts and completely unsustainable. Has anyone else seen tablet growth like that? Ever? Admittedly it’s hard to tell, since Amazon doesn’t report Kindle Fire sales and Samsung lies about Galaxy Tab sales.
While Amazon doesn’t report Kindle Fire sales figures, the Kindle Fire is actually on sale right now, which is always a sign that it was selling super-good at the price it was offered at before.
… iPad unit sales could easily have fallen 40% sequentially this quarter.
Care to wager on that? Because that would be an unprecedented drop.
If I had to boil down Apple’s iPad problems to a single issue, it’s that the new iPad Mini Retina is a flop.
Oh, wait, now the Macalope gets it. This is stream of consciousness performance art! Levine-Weinberg is just typing random imaginary, anti-iPad contentions.
(This has been another episode of Charitable Explanations for Crazy Punditry.)
After five months on the market, the iPad Mini Retina accounts for just 3.7% of all iPad usage (as of Thursday).
And that’s … bad? The iPad has been out for four years. How much share of one site’s measurement of usage is the Retina mini supposed to take? 40 percent? 60 percent? 345 percent?
By contrast, the third-generation iPad (the first to offer a Retina display) still accounts for 13.6% of iPad usage, even though it was on the market for less than eight months in 2012.
Right. Back when there were all of two iPad models for sale. Now there are four.
iPad sales have stagnated in the last year …
14 percent growth is the new “stagnation.”
For Apple only, of course.