Much has been written about the relationship between iPad supply and demand. I’ve added to that discussion here. What I haven’t seen discussed much is how iPad sales might change now that supply and demand are finding equilibrium. As I wrote, I don’t believe supply constraints have defined aggregate unit volume. But I do think it might have influenced allocation across models within that aggregate volume. Nielsen recently suggested about half of iPads are of the 3G variety. This seems consistent with the fact that Apple has to-date sold most of what they’ve made available for sale and I’ve heard that they are spreading supply roughly equally across their models.
In fiscal Q2 (calendar Q1) Apple sold roughly 4.69 million iPads. If roughly half were 3G models – then Apple sold about 2.35 million 3G models during the quarter. But examining the financial releases from ATT and Verizon suggest they collectively activated only about 700k tablets during the same period. If these stats are close, then many who are buying 3G-enabled tablets are not actually using the 3G service. Sure, some are buying it “just in case” and some will perhaps activate it at some point. But there appears to be a large pool of owners who aren’t and likely won’t be using the 3G service unless usage patterns/scenarios change significantly.
As GigaOm reports, in their recent quarterly conference call “Cook went as far as to say that in some markets they (Apple) had actually caught up and were able to be in some sort of an equilibrium with demand and supply they had actually caught up and were able to be in some sort of an equilibrium
with demand and supply.” If supply and demand are finding an equilibrium then buyers will presumably be able to buy the exact model they are interested in. Taken together with the relatively low activation figures suggests the tablets to sell in the future will be predominately Wi-Fi models. This suggests a lower average price point.
