Scott B;2056535
It's a small survey and an early, crude indicator. I probably should have said ‘indicates’ instead of ‘means’, but the portents are the same.
Apple established the precedent of a yearly cadence of new versions some time ago.
Yes, the market is only a year old, but the indications are clear and every sign is that this is far from an ‘early adopter’ device. Regular punters are buying the iPad, they're just doing so quite quickly.
Android and the rest will sell some tablets, the question is how many.
Apple should definitely aim for the mass market, imagine if the iPad was cheaper then the competition. Hold on a minute!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Sales
It's not that the iPad is an early adopter device, it's that most of the people buying it are early adopters. If you conducted a survey on a typical high street and asked about tablets, I wonder what proportion would think you were talking about Apple (let alone Android devices) and what proportion would think you were talking about what their doctor prescribed them?
I don't really see the iPod situation as relevant, either. Not in the long-term. The iPod is and always was going to be a relatively niche product, albeit a large niche, especially among the young. The tablet PC has the potential to be far, far more generic, and over the years, I'd expect it to be a real game-changer if it lives up to the apparent potential.
Scott B;2056535
…..
Apple should definitely aim for the mass market, imagine if the iPad was cheaper then the competition. Hold on a minute!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Sales
I didn't say Apple
should aim for the mass market. Not at all. One marketing strategy is certainly to aim for the cherry on top of the cake, not the whole cake. Rols Royce don't aim for the whole market, and nor do Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW or even VW/Audi.
What I questioned was whether they would corner the market or not, because to corner it
in a widely-appealing product type means you do have to go for the mass market, and Apple for never been known for, or apparently even interested in doing that.
It all comes down to what the market is. If you look at a narrow product type like the iPod, then the iconic status counts for a lot, and being the first to market, especially with a polished branding job like the ipod, count heavily. But if it goes as I think it will, the tablet market is far, FAR larger than that, and far more generic. And as soon as you start to talk about mass market, you're talking about a population demographic that's far more price sensitive than you are for a purely niche (however large a niche) tech product, and when you're talking about a much more expensive product, then that's even more the case.
What does an iPod cost? From what, £110 to £200 plus. What about an iPad?
The more expensive the product, the more any percentage saving is in absolute terms, and that saving in absolute terms is what differentiates the iPad from the iPod in a mass market appeal. Compare a fairly high spec MP3 player to an iPod and you may have, what, £50-£75 compared to £150. or thereabouts? Now compare a £300 capacitative screen Android tablet to a £600 iPad. A lot of people will pay the extra £50 (give or take) for an iconic brand but will baulk at £300 extra for it. There will be a large number of people for whom branding does not justify Apple pricing in high ticket items.
So, it comes down to the perception of the market, in years to come. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them as common household items in virtually every home in the UK (and many other countries) in a few years. I wouldn't be surprised to see them replace TV remotes, the home's internet PC, maybe a laptop of two in the average home, and so on, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more than one, and quite possibly several, in the average home.
Compare the market penetration of PCs today to the market penetration of PCs say 15 years ago. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see market penetration of tablets today comparable to that 15-years old figure, compared to where they could be in a few years.
A lot will depend on power, functionality, batter life and especially software (though I suppose that comes under functionality). But I think the potential is vast, and it could well be the next generic device.
But if it is, and if it does get adopted that widely, then either Apple will have to adopt a much less iconic stance at some point (and it clearly won't be yet) and drop their pricing model a fair bit, or the mass market will go for cheaper and less iconic devices in their droves, perhaps not out of desire, but out of sheer practicality. We may all want to be driving a Rolls, or a Ferrari or even a Merc/BMW, but how many of us actually are?
It's not all that long ago, and certainly within my parent's lifetime, that having a car
at all meant you were, first, an early adopter, and secondly, fairly well-off. Right now, that's close to where tablets are. Are they selling? Yes, but typically to the relatively young, relatively tech-savvy and relatively affluent. They aren't,
yet, a mass-market device. But I suspect in incarnations to come, they will be.
And
none of that suggests I think Apple either will or should change their marketing strategy. Creaming of larger profits from a relatively small part of a potentially huge market can still be very lucrative, and they will no doubt seek to stay ahead of the curve, innovating and maintaining that iconic status as hard as they can.
But it's pretty much a non sequitur to expect an iconic and aspirational brand to be the market leader in a mass market, generic device, which is where I think tablets are going. If I'm right in that, I don't see any way Apple can corner the market without losing the iconic, aspirational status that confers the ability to cream off large and lucrative margins in a
proportionately low volume segment of the market.
And stress, tablets aren't mass market, every-household devices yet. But I suspect they will be in years to come. Apple will no doubt sell a lot, make a mint, and no doubt will seek to remain the leader, in that where they go, others will follow. They'll probably remain the market leader in terms of trend-setting and in substantial volumes, and they'll probably be what most people will
want. But unless price differentials narrow a lot, and absolute price levels drop a fair bit, they won't “corner” the market. They're too expensive on a relatively expensive device to do that, if this really does go mass market.
