Harry McCracken
An analyst report says the iPad is outselling the Mac and closing on the iPhone, at 200,000 units per week–putting Apple on a pace to sell eight million iPads this year.
All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski is reporting about an analyst report that says the iPad is outselling the Mac and closing on the iPhone, at 200,000 units per week–putting Apple on a pace to sell eight million iPads this year, according to the analyst firm’s forecast. That’s a lot of iPads–and if the firm is right, it means that the rumors from months ago that Apple expected to sell ten million iPads in the gizmo’s first year on the market aren’t so nutty.
(Of course, when folks were doubting that Apple could sell ten million iPads in a year, many of them were expecting the “iSlate” to sell for a thousand bucks or so. Only Apple knew that the most basic model would go for a relatively affordable $500.)
Here’s a rerun of the numbers on sales of past Apple products I pulled together when the ten-million-iPads rumor first surfaced. Now that we know a lot more about the iPad, I don’t see why it can’t sell about as many units in a year as the iPhone did last year, assuming that the international rollout doesn’t suffer any further major hitches…
Total sales of Apple I, 1976-1977: about 200
Apple II units sold, 1977-1982: 750,000
Apple II units sold, 1982: 300,000
Total Apple III units sold, 1980-1984: 65,000
Original 1984 Macs sold in first 74 days: 50,000
Original 1984 Macs sold in first year: 250,000
Macs sold, October-December 1993: one million
iMacs sold in first 139 days: 800,000
iPod during first full year: 378,000
iPod at 5 1/2 years: 100 million
Total original iPhones sold: 6.1 million
iPhone at 46 weeks: six million
iPhone/iPod Touch at 20 months: 30 million