Apple may sell 60 million new iPads in 2012 – analysts

PanARMENIAN.Net - Following Apple’s announcement of the new iPad’s record weekend, which saw 3 million devices sold in three days, analysts are upping their predictions for the tablet’s market share growth over the course of the year, TechCrunch reports.

In a note to investors, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says the firm is now forecasting as many as 66 million sales of the new device in 2012, up from the earlier prediction of 60 million. Meanwhile, Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee is now predicting 60 million, up from 55 million.

Regardless of the final outcome, the bottom line impact the device will have on the market was summed up in Munster’s bullish note: ”we believe the unprecedented ramp of the iPad over the past year is evidence that the tablet market will be measurably larger than the PC market,” he said. Munster is also forecasting that Apple will ship 12 million iPads this quarter alone to reach the 66 million by year-end. By 2015, that number will reach 176 million, he says.

Those figures stack up with other trends in the so-called “post-PC” era. For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted during the iPad’s launch that Apple sold more iPads in Q4 than any single manufacturer sold in PCs. Gartner later released figures showing that PC shipments were on track to grow just 4.4% in 2012 to 368 million units, as consumers would prioritize buying smartphones and tablets over desktops and laptops. And let’s not forget that last month, Canalys dubbed Apple the largest “PC” maker if you were to count iPads as PCs.

In addition, IDC also recently raised its tablet shipment estimates for the year, up from 87.7 million to 106.1 million, in advance of the iPad’s launch.