Apple Inc. (AAPL) reportedly sold more than 2.0 million iPads in fewer than 60 days since its launch, due to huge demand for the multimedia touch-screen device. Additionally, a strong international debut for iPads has helped to beat most of the analysts’ and the Street’s expectations.
A few weeks back, Apple announced sales of 1.0 million units in the U.S. alone in the first 28 days after hitting the stores for a starting price of $499. AAPL has now started shipping the iPad to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK with the likely availability in nine more countries in July and additional countries through the end of 2010.
Recent market research puts Apple ahead of Microsoft Inc. (MSFT) in market capitalization, making it the most valuable technology group in the world. Apple has had phenomenal success over the past few years with its iPod, iPhone, Mac and now iPad.
While the number of players in the tablet PC market is likely to increase every day, we believe Apple will follow recent trends and beat the competition hands down. Additionally, we also expect the iPad and iPhone to do quite well internationally, which is a new trend, given that Apple usually offers premium products at premium prices, which has so far made it more of a niche player.
In response to the iPad, Asustek Computer Inc., a Taiwanese computer maker, has unveiled a tablet computer called Eee Pad, which uses Intel (INTC) chips, runs on Microsoft’s Windows 7, supports Adobe (ADBE) flash and has a touchscreen much similar to Apple’s iPad.
Asustek is also planning to sell an e-reader called the Eee Tablet, featuring a two-megapixel camera, an electronic notepad, a media player and a battery life of 10 hours, which will be available in September 2010 at prices ranging between $199 and $299.
Moreover, most of the leading players in the computing market, including Acer Inc. and Dell Inc. (DELL) are also coming out with tablets of their own, which will further increase competition.
Acer plans to launch its LumiRead e-reader globally in the next month or two. The Acer e-reader is designed with a six-inch display, two-gigabytes of flash memory for storing up to 1,500 books, and a touchscreen.
Dell’s Streak is a tablet with a five-inch screen based on Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android operating system and an ARM processor called Snapdragon from Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM). The Streak, unveiled in January, is expected to be available at wireless operator O2’s stores and other outlets by June 2010.
We continue to believe in Apple’s success, and we believe investor sentiment on the stock is also quite high. We therefore have a short-term Strong Buy recommendation on the shares.
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