Apple’s iPad is undeniably cool, but will consumers buy the tablet computer in large numbers? Too big to fit in your pocket and with few native apps that can take advantage of the larger screen, is the iPad a “third device,” as Apple claims, or an awkward middle child?
Analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company released a research report Wednesday that projects modest sales of just two million units this year. Sales are expected to reach six million in 2011, but Wolf wrote that it will take a catalyst to propel sales to the eight million mark in 2012.
Other analysts, such as IDC’s Richard Shin, are predicting sales of two million to four million units this year.
Repeating History?
Both the iPod and iPhone started off relatively weakly until Apple delivered such catalysts, Wolf said. The iPod was just another MP3 player until Apple rolled out the iTunes Store, creating the famed ecosystem where users can browse, buy and download to the iPod in a seamless experience.
The iPhone didn’t truly become a must-have device until Apple opened the platform to third-party developers, unleashing tens of thousands of free and paid apps.
“The long-term trajectory of iPad sales is unlikely to be revealed in the first 18 months after its introduction this spring,” Wolf wrote. “If the analogy with the iPod and iPhone holds up, history suggests, then, that a hockey stick in sales is unlikely to occur before fiscal 2012, which is beyond our forecast period.”
Cannibalizing the iPod Touch
Wolf predicted that iPad sales will cannibalize iPod touch sales as users buy a much larger web-browsing device for a price not much higher than the touch. He predicted that along with two million iPad sales, Apple will sell two million fewer iPod touches this year. In 2011, he expects three million fewer iPod…