If Black Friday was any indication, reports of the iPad’s death have been exaggerated.
AllthingsD reports that investment company Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster took a look at how foot traffic at Apple retail stores fared this past weekend during Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving when people rush out to buy all sorts of new things after spending a day being grateful for what they have). During Black Friday, iPad sales were 68 percent higher than they were last year and, on average, stores were selling 14.8 iPads per hour (over 8.8 iPads per hour last year). A little math will quickly demonstrate that this easily supports projections that Apple will sell 13.5 million iPads in the December quarter. Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore corroborated these findings when, after surveying 100 Apple retail stores as well as another 100 carrier outlets and box-store retailers, he found sales to be more than healthy. In fact, sales were going nuts.
“iPad demand continues to be robust, driven by significant consumer interest in the device,” Whitmore said in a research note to clients. “Our checks indicated the iPad was a popular item on many consumers’ shopping lists over the weekend.”
There have been some big words floating around about how the iPad won’t be performing so well over the holidays and, as seems to happen every time an Apple competitor releases a new product, predictions that Apple’s glory days are over. With the Amazon Kindle Fire getting mixed reviews at best, the BlackBerry Playbook not even getting that, and the HP TouchPad only making a dent in the market because the price was lowered to $99, it seems that the iPad’s decline isn’t going to begin over Christmas 2011.
Source: AllThingsD
