iPad

This is a fresh sales volume number – per WSJ (DowJones News Service) Apple’s daily unit sales of the iPad line were around 37,500. Eighty days after the launch the cumulative sales are around 3 million units. Pretty impressive…

… (Apple) said it sold three million iPads in the tablet computer’s first 80 days on the market, a performance that cements the device’s position as a driver of the consumer electronics giant’s rapid growth.

Sales of the touchscreen device, the first of a new category of tablet devices aimed at consumers, mark another triumph for Apple, which has successfully redefined the mobile market. The figures trump analysts’ initial estimates for sales of roughly 1.7 million iPads in the quarter ending June 30.

Emphasis added by IO. The source article is here (Ian Sherr and Matt Jarzemsky Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES).

USA Today had a 2-page cover story on the iPad today – here are the highlights:

On Opportunity:
“If there ever was a space to do some land-grabbing in, this is it,” says Lahman, Gogii’s CEO.

On Sales Projections
The iPhone spawned a $1 billion-a-year industry for app developers, says analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. He predicts first-year sales of 2.7 million iPads, compared with 4 million iPhones in the first year. The iPhone has grown to become a third of Apple’s business, says Munster. The iPad has the potential to represent 10% to 15% of Apple’s annual revenue by 2012, he says.

On Development Induced by Anxiety
“I’d rather be in early than sit back and wait and let my competitors get early traction,” says Ken Willner, CEO of Zumobi, a Seattle-based developer of ad-supported apps for big media brands including MSNBC and Today. “It’s a larger device, so it’s better for advertising.”

On Living Room Takeover
“This is the iPhone moving into the living room,” says Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous. Its Tap Tap Revenge is one of the iPhone’s most popular games, with 25 million downloads. “In the short term, it’s an extension of the iPhone. In the long term, it’s a brand-new platform that will move eyeballs off gaming consoles and laptops.”

On Drawbacks
Like the iPhone, the iPad doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash software, which is used to watch most online video. That mean videos at popular sites such as Hulu and ComedyCentral.com can’t be viewed, and neither can videos at thousands of other websites that rely on Flash.
Additionally, the iPad doesn’t have slots for common computer add-ons, such as, say, a USB flash drive or external hard drive. If you want to import your own video clips, for instance, you’re out of luck, unless you first put them in Apple’s iTunes software and transfer them from the computer, or figure a way to move them via the Web.

No Flash, no available slots, too big to fit into a pocket: Those are huge drawbacks, Enderle says.

And a bit of self-promotion…
USA TODAY will have an iPad app available on April 3. It will be free for the first 90 days, sponsored by Courtyard by Marriott. After that, USA TODAY will announce subscription pricing.

Prediction Markets (aka predictive markets or idea futures) have been accepted as an official decision making tool in some industries and a handful of leading companies (e.g., HP) are using them – in short, prediction markets harness the collective predictive instincts and provide an additional data point for decision-makers.

One such market is established for iPad sales estimates (see HubDub.com’s page for the source) – the current leading estimate is +6M sold iPad units in 2010. We should treat the numbers published carefully as only 56 folks had engaged in the prediction game.

Follow the link and drop a vote

About HubDub.com

Hubdub is brought to you by 4 guys and a gal in a garage in Edinburgh, Scotland.

On Hubdub you stake virtual money (H$ – Hubdub dollars) on predictions about the outcomes of real news stories. If you’re right you win more, if you’re wrong you lose what you staked. The more Hubdub dollars you have, the better Hubdubber you are (shown by your star level) and the higher on the leaderboards you climb.

The projections come via Gartner.com (Angela McIntyre, Analyst): “The most likely scenario for iPad sales this year is 4.2 million” – Gartner is underlying high price and limited technical capabilities as factors limiting sales potential. I could not find the source article, here is the link to the analyst’s homepage. TheStreet has some of the content published here.

Need a favor – if anyone has a good link with the iPad sales projections/estimates please drop it in the comments section. Gracias…