Tim Cook Says Recent Slump in iPad Sales is Just a “Speed Bump”

[RaduTyrsina]

At the latest earnings call, we've seen Apple officially confirm that iPad sales aren't doing as awesome as they did before. Many tried to find an explanation for this, and now in a recent interview, Apple's CEO Tim Cok said that the slow-down is nothing more but a 'speed bump'. In a brief interview about tablets, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the following:

“We couldn’t be happier with how we’ve done with the first four years of the iPad. I’d call what’s going on recently a speed bump, and I’ve seen that in every category.”

Here are some more details from the original article signed by reputed tech journalist Walt Mossberg:

How you feel about the modern, multitouch tablet depends a lot on what you think Steve Jobs and company set out to do with the iPad back in 2010. If you believe he was out to make a bigger smartphone, or to entirely replace the Mac and PC, you’re wrong.

Using his characteristic slides at the iPad’s introduction, Jobs very clearly positioned his new tablet as a third, complementary category of device that could do some things better than the iPhone or Mac, but not everything.

I believed then, and now, that the success of the iPad depended not on whether it would wholly replace the laptop, but on whether it could be the best, or most convenient, computer in enough common scenarios for which the laptop (and, to a lesser extent, the smartphone) had been the go-to choice.

Mossberg cites venture capitalist and analyst Mary Meeker, which in her annual Internet trends report showed that tablet sales have exploded in a way that PC sales, including sales of cheap netbooks, never did. The journalist also says that in Apple’s last fiscal quarter, when iPad sales declined, it brought in nearly $6 billion in revenue, an amount exceeding the quarterly revenues of Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Groupon and Tesla combined.

Here's what the journalist further adds:

I can’t explain the recent sales plateau. Some speculate that tablet replacement cycles are closer to those of PCs than of smartphones — perhaps three to four years versus two to three years for phones, and four to six years for laptops. So, after an epic explosion of sales since 2010, tablet owners are content to stand pat for awhile, and new customers will trickle in more slowly, because the early blistering rate of growth isn’t sustainable.

Others suggest that, for many people, the rise of large-screen smartphones with five-inch screens or larger — soon to be joined by Apple itself, according to rumors — has sapped some of the desire for tablets.

Optimists, like Tim Cook, have said publicly that there’s plenty of room for tablet growth in emerging markets, where most people never had PCs, and in corporations, where tablet business apps are too few.

But what I can explain is the appeal and value of tablets, and especially the iPad, which has at least two big advantages over its rivals: Longer battery life (over 12 hours, in my tests) and a much greater selection of apps that have been optimized for tablet use — around 350,000, as of today.

We're not sure where tablets are headed, but just as Mossberg points out, with the right apps and scenarios, the iPad can be a good computer.

Source: Recode