Analysts think iPad could beat all-time sales of Kindle in three months

21st March, 2010 by adina
Tags: Amazon, Apple, iPad, Kidle, News

The iPad could be the bestselling e-book reader of all time in no more than three months, as Craig Berger, analyst from FBR Capital, predicts. He is persuaded that the so-called hardware delays were nothing else but false alarms and Apple is capable of shipping five million iPads in the first half of this year. Presuming such a high rate automatically leads to an amazing result: Apple would beat Amazon’s lifetime record of three million Kindle devices in the three-month span starting with early April and ending in June.

This aggressive prediction is somehow surprising as previous estimation indicated only a few hundred thousand devices shipped in March and about one million in April. Apple has officially postponed the launch of the iPad in late April and has given the impression that it would need more stock to be able to cover the initial demand outside of the United States. Considering the actual supplies, Berger warned that shipping quantities do not necessarily shift in actual sales because of various factors, such as trimming or expanding inventory, seasonal patterns in sales, and others that have to be predicted by any company.

If this estimation proves to be accurate, this could be a blow for competing e-reader manufacturers. Many of them, like Barnes & Noble, have frequently talked about successful sales but rarely presented effective figures. They were concerned about their competitors taking advantage of the information, but analysts have observed frequent situations of low supply or chronic shortages. Amazon is a good example, as it was unable to keep a reliable supply until last year due to such problems.

Apart this prediction, Berger is more optimistic on iPod’s future, believing that Apple would ship 9.3 million units in the quarter that ends this month. He has also increased the estimation on desktops and netbooks to 1 million and 1.7 million, respectively. The first estimation was 500,000 and 1 million, respectively. Berger believes Apple would ship 6 million iPhones but is again cautioning this could be only the effort of keeping inventory in check and not a direct consequence of a high demand.

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