The iPad goes on sale in the US on Saturday. As reported in the New York Times, business analysts will be looking on with interest - will the iPad live up to its hype?
Since we reported back in January on the iPad's launch, Apple followers have been avidly following developments and investors have increased Apple's share price by more than 10%. Part of the price increase can be accounted for by the continued growth in sales of the iPhone and Mac computers, but on the day the iPad was announced, Apple's share price went up by almost by 4%. Although Apple has given no sales forecast for the newest member of their touch technology family, analysts have made a few predictions. In the NY Times article, analysts are using Steve Job's launch speech as an indicator. By him drawing on the comparison with netbooks (an $11 billion industry per annum worldwide), experts say Apple is aiming high. Not only that, but in his speech, Jobs implied 75 million consumers already familiar with iPhone and iPod touch technology would have little difficulty in getting to grips with the iPad suggesting that is the market Apple is aiming for.
The TimesOnline has reported that shoppers who have only just put in their pre-sales order will have to wait until April 12 for their new iPad, suggesting demands are running high. Some experts are now revising their sales predictions, estimating Apple could sell as many as 6 million units this year. By 2011, some predictions say the iPad could generate around $4.6 billion for Apple.
Although forecasts vary, the experts do at least agree that until the iPad is in the shops, this is all pure guesswork and will depend on the applications running on it, the sales channels able to sell it and who the product is marketed at. An analyst at RBC Capital Markets, Michael Abramsky said of Apple: "They are going to need to target mainstream users who might otherwise decide to purchase an e-book reader or a netbook. If they are successful in starting to convince those kind of folks, and getting beyond the early adopters who will line up for anything, then it has the potential to blossom."
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