Hasta La Gadget!

Apple managed to sell a lot of iOS devices over the last three months. But iPad sales are still declining. They are down 17.6 percent to 14 million compared to 17 million in Q3 — a bit more than expected. Analysts expected at least 15.55 million units, and sometimes more. Apple missed on those sales.

Last year, Apple sold 11.12 million iPads in Q4. It’s still a 25.9 percent increase year over year. Overall, Apple barely managed to beat the estimates.

Comparatively, in Q4 2011, iPad sales increased by 166 percent year over year. Those sales were above street expectations.

The company just released the fourth generation iPad. And of course, there is the iPad mini. Those devices are going to be released a little bit more than a month after the ending of Q4 on September 29. It will help the sales in Q1 2013. We could expect a new sales record for the iPad in the next quarter.

Over the last quarter, many competitors unveiled and released tablets. The smaller form factor and the price attracted many customers. Among those tablets, we can name the Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

The iPad is still a young product. When it was first released, even though tablet computers existed already, it was a big opportunity for Apple. Now that many people have bought one, the adoption rate is slowing down.

The iPad mini and its lower price tag will certainly help putting the device in the hands of new customers.

Apple had another solid quarter for hardware sales, with iOS device sales leading the charge. iPhone sales were up from last quarter, though slightly under analyst expectations. Sales possibly rose a bit thanks to the iPhone 5, which was on sale for a little while ahead of the end of the quarter on September 30. Sales of the iPhone also grew 58 percent year over year.

In total, Apple sold 26.9M iPhones, 14M iPads, 4.9M Macs and 5.3M iPods. Sales of all types of devices grew compared to the year ago quarter, with the exception of the iPod, which contracted 19 percent year over year. All Apple hardware fell short of even the revised average of analyst expectations, however.

The iPad had another strong quarter, increasing sales 26 percent year over year, something no doubt helped by the fact that despite the fact that a 4th generation version of the iPad just launched, few predicted its arrival very much in advance, meaning customer expectations didn’t have time to affect shopping patterns ahead of its launch the way they did with the iPhone 5′s hotly anticipated arrival. Still, it was under the 5.73 million average predicted by Apple watchers.

Macs also grew compared to last year, but only by 1 percent, suggesting people were looking for more than the updated 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. This number essentially met analyst expectations, though just barely.

iPod sales continued to flag, which isn’t surprising. Sales of the iPod have declined steadily as customers move to purchase iPhones and iPads instead of dedicated portable media player devices. The iPod remains a category leader, but it’s just not the growth market it once was.

We heard last month that Apple was planning to launch a Pandora competitor within the coming months, but according to new reports, it won’t launch until sometime in the first quarter of 2013. That could mean it’s coming in January, or it may not be until March, but if the rumors are true, we should be seeing an online music service from Apple before spring hits.

Bloomberg is reporting that negotiations with record labels has intensified, and that the goal is to launch the streaming music service sometime in the first quarter of the new year. The deal could be complete as soon as the middle of next month, with ad revenue sharing being the focus of discussion at the moment.

Rumored features that may arrive with the new service (and which Apple is negotiating for) include auto-generated playlists of what listeners have heard, and the ability to buy tracks as “music streams”, which we’re not sure what exactly that entails, but it could mean that you can purchases songs that stay in the cloud, so there wouldn’t be a need to download the file.

It’s still unclear as far as what the service will look like and what exactly it will do, but Apple is currently trying to make updated licensing deals with several labels to extend out from what the current iTunes business model consists of. Microsoft just revamped its Xbox Music service, which includes free, ad-supported streaming music. So, if Apple wants to compete, they’ll have to have a response fairly soon.

[via Bloomberg]

Apple rumored to launch online music service in 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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A table of 100 of iPads at WWDC 2012? How about a sea of hundreds of Microsoft’s Surface RT tablets and accessory keyboard covers standing under the hot lights?

Filed under: Misc, Tablets, Microsoft

Visualized: A sea of Surfaces originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon has just released its earnings for the third quarter of the year and it looks like it’s slightly off analysts’ expectations. The company reported $13.18 billion in revenue (a growth of 27 percent) and an operating loss of $28 million, with net income standing at a loss of $274 million. As Amazon notes, though, a chunk of that, some $169 million, comes from losses resulting from its investment in LivingSocial — it says the figure is “primarily attributable to its impairment charge of certain assets, including goodwill.” Expectedly, the company still isn’t offering any specific numbers for device sales, noting only that the Kindle Fire HD is the number one selling product across Amazon worldwide, and that the next two bestselling products worldwide are the Kindle Paperwhite and the $69 Kindle. As for its outlook for the next quarter, the company is expecting net sales of between $20.25 billion and $22.75 billion, and operating income of anywhere from a loss of $490 million to a profit of $310 million. You can find the company’s full breakdown of all the numbers at the link below.

Continue reading Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million

Filed under: Tablets, Internet, Amazon

Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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