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iPad-MiniApple’s recently announced Q2 2014 earnings broke all previous company records with growth across all product lines in all markets – all apart from the iPad. The company sold 16.4 million units in the quarter – a 16% drop from 19.5m units in the same quarter 2013.

The problem? Customers will balk at paying more for a product that’s not too dissimilar from a cheaper, rival machine, regardless of that product’s reputation. Tesco in the UK for example has just announced that it will soon be releasing its Hudl 2 budget tablet that will come pre-loaded with Tesco apps and services like its streaming movies offering, blinkbox.  Elsewhere, Amazon has shown its a serious contender in the tablet market with its Kindle Fire, the next iteration of which will be launched later this year.

With all this in mind, we put the question to MEF members and industry commentators: has the ipad had its day?


realnetworksMax Pellegrini

President Mobile Entertainment

RealNetworks

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Max Pellegrini

President Mobile Entertainment

RealNetworks

“My view is that iPad is not losing too much market share to Android tablets. In fact, in the US iPad has 77.2% of Tablet Web traffic down last April to 81.3%  from April 2013. So iPad market share is still very dominant. I expect UK and Europe market data to be in line with that. So iPad is still dominating the Tablet category. On the other side, the big relevant news in the Apple release was the big growth in iPhone sales. So we should look at the sluggish iPad sales in the perspective of “smartphones outpacing tablets”. There are two mega trends happening right now in my view:

  1. The smartphone opportunity is so much bigger for developers that they concentrate on smartphones first and many of them do not extend apps to tablets
  2. Smartphones are becoming more and more productive  and able to perform so many functions reducing the need to carry a tablet. Also, new teen generations are smartphone-only and do not feel the need to move to tablets.

As a results demand for tablets has slowdown compared with the growth of smartphones.”


Ronan CreminRonan Cremin

Chief Technology Officer

dotMobi

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Ronan Cremin

CTO

dotMobi

“Apple built a solid product with the iPad. Perhaps a little too solid, given that the long-lasting quality of the iPad means there isn’t a compelling reason to upgrade. Apple utterly dominated the smartphone market at first, only later losing significant ground to Android. The iPad leads the market in its own right, but Android devices are catching up and are likely to become even more popular due to lower price points. We already track over 2,000 different Android tablets in use today, which when combined rival iPad dominance.”


Jim McCall_The UnitJim McCall

Managing Director

The Unit

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Jim McCall

Managing Director

The Unit

“The majority of iPad owners are early adopters of the technology that will be on their third or fourth version and as the degrees each version progresses at remains to be relatively small, consumers will lose interest in owning the latest model. Unless there is a radical change soon, popularity will start to fade as audiences realise the technology has peaked and will instead turn to the good quality and cheap tablet options that are increasingly available.”


Mark RussellMark Russell

Managing Director

Optimus Performance Marketing

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Mark Russell

Managing Director

Optimus Performance Marketing

“Smartphones and tablets, particularly iPads, are the single biggest change to consumer behaviour in the last decade (recession aside)- giving rise to the widespread use of applications that make shopping online, a seamless and effortless experience when done well! Retailers and affiliate publishers alike have to ensure that consumers are able to use their sites on these devices in order to maintain sales and growth, meaning optimisation for tablets to ensure user experience is paramount. A fundamental shift we have seen in daily sales patterns is the change from a lunchtime peak when people shopped from their work PC to sales now peaking in the evening with people shopping on their iPads from the comfort of their own sofa. Personally, I cannot see this changing any time soon!”


If you’d like to contribute a comment to this article then contact us at editorial@mefmobile.org or leave your thoughts in the replies below

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