During Apple's quarterly earnings call, the company's CEO, Tim Cook, said that the launch of the $199 Kindle Fire didn't deter customers from buying the iPad, and that there wasn't any slowdown in sales.
Apple had, to begin with, not expressed much concern over the Kindle Fire, saying that it would only contribute to the fragmentation of an already fragmented Android tablet market.
Apple sold more than 15 million iPads in a span of just three months starting from October last year. The Kindle Fire started shipping in the middle of November, so the numbers released yesterday correctly represent the effect that Amazon's tablet had on the iPad, which was none, at least according to Tim Cook.
He said:
"I think that people really want to do multiple things with their tablets, and therefore we don’t really see these limited-function tablets and e-readers being in the same category. There’s clearly customers that will buy those, and I think they’ll sell a fair number of units, but I don’t think that people who want an iPad will settle for limited function.
When I looked at the data, particularly in the U.S., on a weekly basis, after Amazon launched the Kindle Fire, and I wouldn’t—in my view, there wasn’t an obvious effect on the numbers, plus or minus. The theory that you’ve [the analyst who asked the question] got, I have heard, clearly, from some customers that that occurred, that they went in thinking they would buy that, they looked at it, decided to buy an iPad; whether that’s happening on a larger basis, I don’t know. Again, my own view is looking at our data in the U.S., there was no obvious change in the data, for what it’s worth, that’s how I see it."
The first few lines of Cook's response indicate that, if (when?) a low cost iPad arrives in the market, it won't be a toned down version of the current iPad with features stripped off to reduce cost. Instead, just like the iPhone, Apple would push existing models down the price chart as new ones arrive.
Nor would Apple ever create a dedicated eBook reader, although chances of that happening were next to nil anyway. (But when you think about it, a dedicated, cheap, iBook reader capable of reading books created by iBooks Author would be a hit with the education market. Thoughts?)
With regard to competition from other tablet makers, Cook said:
"In terms of other tablets, you know, last year was supposed to be the year of the tablet, and I think most people would agree it was the year of the iPad, for the second year in a row. And so we’re just going to innovate like crazy in this area, and we think we can continue to compete with anyone that is currently shipping tablets or that might enter in the future."
Cook admitted that the iPad was cannibalizing Mac sales, but he chose to see the brighter side - the iPad was cannibalizing PC sales as well, and to a much greater degree. And that is how Apple works, not afraid to cannibalize their own products. In Apple's defense, it's all going really well for them, really really well.
[via Macworld's coverage]
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