Counting iPad, Apple is 3rd largest portable computer maker
With 3.3 million iPad sales last quarter, if that number is lumped in with MacBook and MacBook Pro laptop sales, Apple reportedly slingshots over Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell to claim the #3 spot in portable computer market share.
Which is okay for headlines and graphs, I guess. As longtime readers know, I've repeatedly said market share isn't anywhere near as important for Apple as profit share. With just 3% of the smartphone market they still make twice the profit Sony, Nokia, and RIM make combined. With single digit PC share they still make umpteen billions on higher end, higher margin Macs.
Sure an iPad can't do everything a Mac laptop or Windows or Linux laptop or netbook can do, but it can apparently do enough things well enough, and maybe a few things better enough, to be selling a million units a month with no sign of slowing down. It's not cannibalizing Mac sales to do it either. If it's cannibalizing netbooks and bargain laptops, already practically loss-leaders for Intel, Microsoft, and the manufacturers, while significantly boosting Apple's bottom line, then that's very interesting for the market.
Especially when Microsoft still seems intent on competing with tablets based on Intel chips running Windows 7 -- sometime in 2012. My guess is HP/Palm and BlackBerry maker RIM are more likely to try and emulate Apple's more mobile OS, higher margin strategy.
But back to the headline and graph: 1) should iPad be counted as portable computers alongside laptops and netbooks, and 2) what kind of market does that make where Apple is earning huge margins while everyone else is scraping by on razor-thin, race-to-the-bottom portable PCs?
[Fortune, graphs via Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore]
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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iPad shouldn't be counted. It's more of a pmp/ereader hybrid. Now if we're talking pmp or ereader market, then the ipad is relevant.
I think people are forcing ipad into a category that has laptops or netbooks. A big ipod touch is no match for a laptop running OSX or windows.
Why not count iphones and ipod touch sales? What makes the ipad any more of a "portable computer?" Merely the screen size?
I think the iPad should be counted. It's used to make music, create work documents, remote into machines, surf the web, make skype calls, receive skype calls, play movies, and many, many other things. I don't take my laptop with me on business trips anymore because I simply don't need it. That alone suggests to me that this product is a computer and needs to be counted as one.
@JH
Then let's count iphones & ipod touch devices. Both of them are just as capable of what you mentioned?
If NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer qualified as a computer in 1969, then the iPad (even smartphones) should certainly qualify as portable computing.
Nah, its iOS, iOS runs on iPhone and iPod. Its the OS that makes this a mobile device, not a full fled computer. It shouldn't be counted.
My iPad has certainly replaced my netbook. I wouldn't say it goes as far as a notebook, though. The iPhone question is less clear. In a pinch, I can use my iPhone like a net book, but the screen size is a factor and iPad apps usually have more functionality than iPhone apps (e.g. the iWork apps).
I think it should be counted, I have 2 laptops, and all I use is my Ipad for my on to go pc needs. My laptops stays home and they don't get any love any more, they are home for the dust bunnys.
Did you count HP PCs (personal calculators)? If iPad is a computer I believe graphing calculators should be counted as well. No data transfer capabilities (min USB) = not a computer
The iPad should not be counted until it can print a document from any app and attach a file to a web site in the web browser.
The iPad should not be counted until it can run without being setup/updated from a REAL computer. As soon as people don't need to use iTunes to support the iPad to do the things they need from a real computer, then you can call it a real computer.
@Dionte, should we discard all portable units that lack some of the features iPad has, just becaus iPad is missing 'print' and 'attach' features of legacy models? No, we shouldn't. Likewise, we shouldn't kick iPad out of the party.
@Dood, agreed. You can't define a computer by a laundry list of technical specifications, other than maybe having a CPU, memory, and some form of I/O. Just because a device doesn't have particular features that certain people feel are deal breakers for them doesn't disqualify it for the rest of the users.
I think the only way you can classify these devices is by their use. If enough people use an iPad in place of a netbook or notebook, it counts.
If there were guidelines by what the survey classifies as a portable computer, such as, but not limited to: -WiFi connectivity -An HDD larger than 512MB -A minimum screen resolution -...etc We could narrow down whether or not an iPad under the circumstances qualifies, when an iPhone does not.
Eh, I don't think the iPad is a computer.
@Dood It goes to what would be the guidelines for a PC? You can do work on an iPad a little easier than you can on an iPhone because of the larger screen. But ultimately you need to have your iPad supported by a real PC, mobile or desktop, just as you would your iPhone or any other mobile device (Pads, Pods, Phone, Calculators etc). Netbooks and notebooks on the other hand don't NEED support from another PC.
@ Webvex - "I think the only way you can classify these devices is by their use. If enough people use an iPad in place of a netbook or notebook, it counts."
Agree. If iPad has enough features to replace a laptop, then it's a mobile computer. For some people, iPad is a mobile computer. For others it's not. Same with iPhone.
@Erik, I fail to see why dependence on another computer for loading and updating software is a determining factor. It's annoying, yes, but that doesn't make a device any less capable when it's unattached. If your netbook/notebook doesn't have a built-in CD/DVD drive and you have to use an external one to load the OS and software, does that disqualify it?
The whole idea of categorizing devices based on their technical specifications doesn't work. If 99% of people use a rock to drive in nails, they should be counted as hammers. Or is it not a hammer if it isn't crome plated?
Most seem to agree that a product that virtually replaces nothing but an Ipod Touch should not be counted in the mix. "Cool" doesn't make it a computer.
Congrats to Apple. Their products are amazing. From their desktops, to their Macbooks, the Ipad, Ipod and and the amazing Iphone 4 they deserve all of their success. I am a proud Iphone 4 owner and a Macbook Pro owner and planning on getting the Ipad 3g within a month or so. I have never been disappointed with any of their products. i never came across the problem like other ppl say, and watching movies on the go with aneesoft converter to iphone4 is really fun:)
It doesn't count until I am able to activate another iPods/iPhones from the iPad it self (which needed itunes to activate before you use is just still crazy)