Not to the surprise of the already disappointed, but perhaps to the fanboy’s chagrin, information detailing consumer demand for the iPad is quite weak.
Few people are claiming to wish to purchase the device, despite months of hype surrounding the gadget and a very well covered launch event.
In data collected by Retrovo both pre and post the iPad’s unveiling, consumer interest in the device has declined from before to after its lengthy introduction by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The data speaks loudly for itself, take a look:
The percentage of people who know of the device and do not want one doubled after the announcement. The percentage of people who need more information, but might be interested rose slightly from 19 to 21 percent.
Of course, the number of people claiming not to know about the device while stating a lack of interest declined, with many from that camp stating that they have heard of the device, and are not still interested as we previously noted.
After the announcement a scant 9% of people polled want to buy the device outright. For a device that is supposed to open a new product category and revolutionize touch computing, that is a disappointing figure.
It looks like a rocky start for the iPad. Will this change before the device goes on sale?
Everyone I've spoken to says they can't wait to buy one (ranging from 16 year olds to 50 year olds). I REALLY don't think the iPad is going to struggle to sell.
We'll have to wait and see.
I'm going to buy one, for sure.
constantin ion
“Everyone you've spoken to” Doesn't constitute a scientific poll. For all we know you live in a college dorm full of vegans and art students.
We estimate that the Apple will sell around 3 million iPad in 2010 and more of the second generation (with camera…) in 2011 and beyond.
I truly wish I could make a bet on 2010 I-Tablet sales. My guess is no more than 500,000 and not a million, forget 2 or 3 million. The price prevents huge sales to the under 18 especially with the requirement to sign up for a carrier plan. The over 18 the going to college set will be hard pressed to drop $600 + given their pending expenses to include the gadgets for college, tuition, books to name a few. The institutional buyers are watching every dime and splurging on a gadget will not pass the straight face test. The business traveler is a hard sell, with productivity the major requirement.
9% means 31 million people! absurd 'story'. needs to define many thing inorder for any number to be meaningful. this is not a publishable story.
This information comes from a survey of Retrevo users, hardly a representative sample of prospective iPad buyers. This “study” is just another example of dreadful research, nothing more. It's hardly a reliable measure of potential iPad sales.
If this is a true statistical sample, then 9% translates into about 27 million interested people in the country. I think that's quite good. I don't know of many products that 9% of the country would want to buy. And this is only the beginning.
9% only – we'll see!! For me the idea of kicking back on the couch or in the backyard to surf the web on an ipad will be very convenient thing and once the world see's the product, the numbers will change. The fad factor will certainly kick in. In addition, I am sure apple will give the marketing a pretty good nudge.
Jeff Bezos said they sell six books for the Kindle for every 10 physical books with the same titles. How much of the Kindle market will Apple gobble up (both devices and book titles). I don't expect the iPad to have the same sales volume as iPhone, but I do bet it will be a success for Apple.
Personally? I WANT ONE!! I haven't seen this anywhere-but as someone who has some physical-including sight-challenges, this iPad is like a DREAM. Light, big enough to enlarge fonts easily, Web, email, and MANY of the Apps that will be available-absolutely incredible for someone like myself and others that have physical challenges which make normal laptops: too heavy/bulky, iPod Touch/iPhone: too small, netbooks: FAR too clumsy. I'm also frequently going to appointments & short hospitalizations–this is PERFECT!! Can't Wait!!
ONLY 9% would consider buying an iPad? *smiles* That would be the most succesfull market entry since the introduction of sliced bread!
The change from 3% of people saying “I would like to buy one” to 9% after the product announcement (of those who heard about it) does not actually reflect a lot of consumer disappointment either, IMHO ;-)
what is the point with 3g?
the ipad is stupid
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Not sure these charts mean anything .. look at the increase in people likely to buy it, your charts show that tripled? 3% before, 9% after…never sure about such surveys, unless you ask the same people, what can you really say. and as pointed out, 9% of the USA population is a lot, never mind globally.
The point of 3G – to be able to be connected when mobile, obviously.. going to be useful in certain situations to whip out the pad and quickly get onto a website, or if in IT tech support, get onto a remote system via RDP, etc..
Funny how data can be made to create any headline you like … the table above supports all of these headlines;
The amount of people who want to buy an ipad has tripled since the announcement (3% to 9%)
Over 25 million people interested in buying an iPad (3% of US pop)
Those not interested in iPad has halved since the launch (35% down to 18%)
30% of people are potential buyers of the iPad (21% + 9%)
this smacks of a biased story searching for a iPad bashing headline …..
First of all, there is no “requirement to sign up for a carrier plan”. Most users, I suspect, will make do with WIFI. And the iPad is a consumer appliance not a productivity tool, so I don't imagine there will any take up by institutional buyers or business travellers.
Fine – exercise your consumer sovereeignty and don't buy one. It's that simple.
The iPad is a success already. Its cheap, its small and sexy, its from Apple, it has amazing multitouch functionality, world class SDK from Apple, and an army of developers that has already grinded their teeth on the iPhone and Apple Design Guidelines – which defines the world-class high standards for portable software. This is the computer for “the rest of us”, for sure.
Clothing manufacturers are already designing clothing with a pocket for the iPad!
So, according to this, the percentage of “not interested” was 61% initially (no and not int, plus yes and not int), and now is 60% – (same sum). Are y'all really that incapable of understanding the data or?
Oops – my bad – now 70% – 9% shift… which still leaves the tripled “yes”… just not sure this shows a problem for Apple – call me PollyAnna…
I want an ipad now!
Neither does conducting a poll on a nerd/techie website. I must say I don't want one but many of the folks I have spoken too are driving me nuts with questions about it. Average people think its the greatest thing ever. I think Cnn or some other wide ranging organization should do a poll. I think the numbers would be quite different.
The juggle of reasons why the I-Pad will sell does not pass the straight face test. WiFI only like the I-Touch means surfing the web with degraded performance (no Flash) and in your home or in a hotspot. The reason why I-Pad would superior to a Netbook or Laptop absent a keyboard or adjustable display falls apart. As an e-book device you have to cob together connectivity and with the lower priced I-Pad limited storage for large amounts of books. Given all of that especially without a Carrier, the utility of the I-Pad becomes highly limited. If you are looking for sales in the millions then the consumer appliance better also be a productivity tool, especially one that by size is not exactly portable like a I-phone, I Touch or I-Pod.
A “scant 9%”? It's a good thing you're just a blogger and not making business decisions for Apple.
Here's another interpretation of the survey results:
1. Of the people who learned about the iPad between Jan 20 and and Feb 3, 74% are interested.
2. The number of people who think they will buy one tripled from 3% to 9%, which would be a huge market share if they actually did
3. Pointing out that “Yes I head, but I'm not interested” went from 26% to 52% is extremely misleading because of course that number will grow a great deal simply because half the people hadn't even heard beforehand. It's entirely expected that a big chunk of those people wouldn't be interested once they find out. But as I point out in #1 above, a 3-times bigger chunk become interested!
Here's how I arrived at the above:
52% did not hear about the iPad before, and that drops to 18% after. This means that the “Just Found Outers”, those that did not hear about it before and learned about it from Apple's announcement or all the ensuing coverage, is 34% of the respondents.
So what is the opinion of this 34%, the Just Found Outers? Since the total “not interested” slice only grows from 61% (35+26) to 70% (52+18), it's a fair assumption that 9 out of 34 Just Found Outers are not interested, and 25 out of 34 are interested in some fashion. That's 74% of the Just Found Outers!
Go ahead, look at the data yourself. The key is not to simply compare the sizes of slices in isolation before and after, but to figure out where people moved from the slices that shrunk to the slices that grew.
It is not even available for preorder yet…cmon