iPad not cannibalising Mac sales

The latest sales figures from the US suggest the Apple iPad isn't adversely affecting Mac sales as feared, despite Apple boosting production levels to meet soaring demand.

The NPD Group's latest US domestic sales figures showed Mac sales had increased by an average of 37 per cent year-on-year in April and May the first two months of Apple's third fiscal quarter.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, this suggested Q3 Mac sales will total between 3.1 or 3.2 million units, slightly ahead of forecasts of 3.1 million.

While those forecasts certainly built in a small degree of iPad cannibalisation, the reality has been just that small. If anything, the iPad's arrival has had a greater impact on iPod sales, which dropped an average of 13 per cent over the same two-month period.

Suggested sales of nine to ten million units for the quarter are set to fall slightly shy of analyst forecasts, but given the iPad retails for around four times the price, Munster says this "slight cannibalisation" was still a "net positive for Apple's business".

The iPad's lack of impact on Apple's other product lines is all the more impressive, given just how well the tablet itself has been received.

According to a report in Taiwan's DigiTimes, Apple's manufacturing partners in the country said they had been ordered to increase iPad output to between 2.3 and 2.35 million units in July as worldwide supplies continue to prove insufficient to satisfy demand.

DigiTimes senior analyst, Mingchi Kuo, said: "58 to 60 per cent [of orders are] for the Wi-Fi and 3G hybrid model, despite Wi-Fi only models having stronger sales in the first half of 2010."

This reflects the fact that, following the iPad's announcement in January, it took some time for the 3G model to join the Wi-Fi-only option for US customers looking to pre-order.

Either way, the Apple tablet continues to sell well, and after reaching sales of two million units on 31 May, it has just reached its latest milestone.

"People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," said Apple boss Steve Jobs yesterday to mark unit sales reaching the three million mark.

"We're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month."

Much of the iPad's success has been put down to its unashamed focus on being a device aimed almost entirely at consumers of content, and it is this very point that Piper Jaffray's Munster suggested was behind its lack of impact on Mac sales.

"Apple has successfully limited the iPad functionality to primarily content consumption, versus content creation on a Mac," he argued.