iPad 2, Out Of Stock In the United States! Who's Buying?

iPad 2 sales in the first weekend have outsold those of the iPad and the wait for delivery is up to at least three weeks. The new Apple tablet is hauling in the business and not only among Apple fans. In spite of the competition, Apple is still a very attractive a proposition.


According to the analyst, Gene Munster, Apple may already have sold between 400,000 and 500,000 iPad 2s. Over the same period, 300,000 iPads were sold. Still according to Gene Munster, 70% of iPad 2 buyers didn't buy the first edition, but 65% of them have an iPhone.

iPad 2: 82% intention to buy

On Friday, launch day, and this weekend, the queues in front of major Apple stores, were, for the most part, longer than last spring, when the first Apple tablet came out. An unequivocal success! According to a report by ChangeWave, 82% of those who say they will be buying a tablet this year say they intend to buy an iPad. 4% say they're going to go for a Motorola Xoom, 3% the RIM Playbook and 3% the Samsung Galaxy Tab.


Stocks are therefore very low and prospective iPad 2 buyers will have to wait from three weeks to a month for their new tablet to be delivered. As was the case last year, there has no doubt been a run a tablets from black market European suppliers aiming to make a hefty mark up because of the later launch this side of the Atlantic.

Preference for 3G

Still according to Gene Munster (Piper Jaffray) who is one of the leading observers of tablet sales in the United States, while Apple fans were clearly over-represented in last years iPad sales figures, there is more of a balance between Mac users and PC users among buyers of the iPad 2. 51% of the early buyers of the iPad 2 are reported to be Mac users against 49% PC users (26% in 2010). This data is however based on a small sample of just 286 buyers, questioned in the queues outside stores so we should wait for further confirmation.

Other points highlighted in the Munster report are that users are tending to go for the higher memory capacity versions (between 32 GB and 64 GB) and that wi-fi + 3G is winning out over wi-fi alone.

The iPad 2, whose iOS 4.3 has already been jailbroken, looks certain to be another Apple success, then. If Gene Munster's data is confirmed, Apple will have succeeded in bringing a whole swathe of new PC users into the fold!

This will of course also mean a whole swathe of new iTunes accounts, which will only go to strengthen Apple's hand in negotiations with content publishers (music, video and so on). The same goes for iPad 2 apps. At the presentation of the new tablet, Steve Jobs claimed that there were already 65,000 specially designed apps waiting in the wings for iPad 2, compared to just a few hundred on Android. It looks like there's no stopping him!


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