
Piper Jaffray: iPad 2 totally sold out, 70% to new buyers - mjfern
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/13/piper-jaffray-ipad-2-totally-sold-out-70-to-new-buyers/
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Stormbringer
Dammit. Now everyone else is going to get screwed just like last year, as
shipments intended for outside the US will be diverted to the US to meet
internal demand. We got the shaft not once but twice last year.

The thing that persists me off is that a sale outside the US is just as good
as a sale inside the US, or even arguably better, given the US currencies
recent shitty performance.

Dear Apple, please don't screw over your foreign fans you inconsiderate
bastards. Okay? Call me. Love you.

~~~
Derbasti
Yeah, it sucks to be European (I am one, too). I wonder how revenue is
distributed around the world.

I remember Nintendo Wii's being out of stock in the US but plentiful around
here because there was so much more to earn in Europe due to currencies. I
wonder why Apple is not caching in on that? A 500€ iPad is worth 700$. This
makes every low-spec iPad sold in Europe nearly equivalent to a top-of-the-
line iPad sold in the US!

~~~
mgkimsal
are there not typically more taxes that might be paid on european sales too?

If a US company sells something in the US for $499 vs selling it in the UK for
499 GBP, do they make more money? I'd guess there's too many variables to be
definitive, but I do suspect that there's potentially less profit, even with a
weak dollar. That 499 GBP price, for example, has VAT built-in - in the US we
add tax on top of the $499 USD.

~~~
Derbasti
That is true only while the Euro is weak.

I lived in the US when the original iPad came out. I bought it it on day one,
for 500$+VAT. At the time, that was equivalent to about 350€ (strong Euro). It
was later sold in Europe for 470€ (IIRC). That was when the Euro was strong in
respect to the Dollar--just like now.

Right now, 550$ are about 400€. Apple will surely not sell the iPad 2 at a
lower price than the original iPad, so this makes them a handsome 80€ profit
on each iPad they sell in Europe and not in the States.

~~~
mgkimsal
Are you really sure about that?

499USD = ~360EUR. A 499EUR ipad would seem to give another 193USD profit.
But... do higher European taxes negate the higher price point? That was my
original point. Yes, there's more revenue, but if they have to pay more
(taxes, wages, etc) it might be a wash.

~~~
Derbasti
In contrast to VAT in the US, the equivalent taxes in Europe are only applied
to actual profits. Hence, you can directly compare 550$ (price+VAT) to 470€.
The difference will be reduced by a fixed percentage (19% in Germany, 7% in
Austria), but it will still be a profit.

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rbritton
Anecdotally, I've noticed a huge spike in app sales since Friday. So far it's
a larger spike for me than Christmas even was.

~~~
andrewljohnson
It wasn't as big as Christmas, but we also are seeing a big bump in sales.

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nostromo
I wonder if "running out" of the cheapest sku pushes people up to more
expensive models? Might make fiscal sense for Apple to release them in
batches.

~~~
robryan
I'm pretty sure it would someone going out on the first weekend is really keen
to get one, when you are already committed to spending $500-$600, a $100 up
sell isn't going to be to hard on the part of the retailers.

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olivercameron
It's looking like another record year for Apple, as if there was any doubt.

~~~
aclements18
Considering an iPhone5 on two carriers this year too, yeah no doubt they are
Sheening right now.

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jamesbkel
Maybe I'm missing something, but does anyone have an explanation for the
28%(N)/32%(Y) response to "Did you have the first iPad?" at the launch of the
first iPad?

~~~
peyton
If you look up the iPad 1 column, you'll see those two figures listed for the
first question. I'm guessing those first rows got copypasted and somebody
forgot to change the new rows to "na."

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jonknee
Not sure if the 70% new buyers figure is correct as the table also lists they
asked that question last year... How could anyone have had an iPad at the iPad
1 launch? The question above has N/A for last year, perhaps the two sets of
results got reversed...

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xenophanes
Wow, so many 32gb ipads. Who buys those? Seems to me you're price sensitive or
you aren't, and you want disk space to dump all your stuff on it or you don't
care too much. I don't quite see the use case for the middle ground.

~~~
ojbyrne
"Apple (AAPL) ran out of 16GB iPads first, then 32BG models..." could have
been a factor.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I picked up a 16GB model yesterday, but I would've sprung for the 32 if they'd
run out of the 16GB models. It was probably sufficiently important to me to
have a black version that I would have picked up the 32GB black iPad before a
16GB white one.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Out of curiosity, why'd you go for the black model?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I figured the white bezel would be distracting.

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omarkassim
Any plenty to grey market re-sellers globally.

It's almost like Gene's team completely forgot or decided to forgo the very
large global grey market that exists.

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gamble
It looks to me like Apple was trying to rush the iPad 2 onto the market before
the flood of competing tablets later this year. Consider the limited stock at
launch, the very short delay between the announcement and retail availability,
and the fact that unlike most Apple launches they didn't clear the old model
from the channel beforehand.

~~~
arn
\- Apple doesn't usually clear the channel beforehand

\- "Limited stock" is relative. Clearly they sold as many as they made. If
they made 500,000 would you call it limited stock still? 1,000,000? 2,000,000?
You just don't know how many they made.

~~~
gamble
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Retail availability of Apple products
is almost always reduced before new launches. The iPad 1 was easily available
right up to the iPad 2 launch.

Best estimates right now are around 500k units. Given the obvious level of
demand, that's 'limited' in my book.

~~~
arn
\- It's rare that stock completely bottoms out. There's a lot of tea-reading
that happens with reseller stock levels near new product launch. It happened
with the iPad too: [http://www.gforgames.com/gadgets/news-gadgets/ipad-stock-
sho...](http://www.gforgames.com/gadgets/news-gadgets/ipad-stock-shortages-
ipad-2-release-date-announcement-coming-5592/)

Either way, I disagree with you. 1) if you expect that you wouldn't be able to
get an iPad at all. 2) if you think the pre-low-stock talk was any different
for iPad than any other refreshed Apple product.

\- Estimates for 500,000 units are from Analysts who are notoriously
inaccurate. The original iPad sold 300,000 units opening weekend. So if you
were Tim Cook, what's your reasonable "not limited" number to shoot for iPad 2
launch based on the original sales? 2x? 3x? 10x? We'll likely find out how
close you and Apple's numbers agree as the launch numbers will probably be
announced.

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daimyoyo
I submitted a blog post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318747> about my
theory of why apple is allowing the iPad to remain sold out today, despite
knowing that people would still want one.

