LONDON/NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s newest iPad looked like another hot seller yesterday as hundreds lined up at stores around the world to get their hands on the tablet, though the crowds and waiting times in some cities were less than in previous years.
The third-generation iPad has only a few new features including faster wireless connectivity and a crisper display, but analysts nonetheless expect Apple to dominate the tablet market well into next year.
“I just got hyped into it, I guess,” said David Tarasenko, a 34-year-old construction manager who was the first to pick one up from a Telstra wireless store at midnight in Sydney.
The buzz helped propel Apple shares to touch a record high of $600 in New York on Thursday, though the stock later erased gains and was trading at around $588 at midday on Friday.
In New York, the queues were nothing compared with previous years. “I came by at midnight and nobody was here,” said Peter Brown, 51, who owns a marketing and communications company in London and was waiting in line at Apple’s flagship New York City store on Fifth Avenue.
The new iPad – Apple has refrained from calling it iPad 3 – has faster chips, fourth-generation wireless, a sharper display and a better camera, making it harder for competitors like Samsung’s Galaxy, which also lack Apple’s range of apps and content, to catch up.
On price, too, Apple’s rivals will struggle to beat it. The new iPad starts at $499 in the United States, 479 euros ($630) in Germany and 42,800 yen ($510) in Japan. Only Amazon Inc’s far more basic Kindle Fire is significantly cheaper.
Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 but has dropped its price by $100 to start at $399. Some analysts expect sales of the new iPad to overtake the old. So far, the company has sold 55 million tablets since the first iPad was launched in 2010.
Even in a tough economic climate in some parts of the world, many buyers, like 27-year-old Steve Henry in Paris, said they would scrimp elsewhere if necessary.
“I save money on my other purchases for high-tech shopping,” said Henry, a systems engineer at a railway company who was hoping to buy his first iPad mainly to watch films and read during his more than two hours of travel per day.
Some U.S. retailers offered special deals. At Target , customers who traded in their working iPad 2 could receive up to $350 in store credit, a spokeswoman said.
MARKET LEAD
Tablet sales are expected to increase to 326 million by 2015 with Apple largely dominating the market, according to research firm Gartner, adding that tablet sales will rival desktop computer shipments of 368 million units this year.
The enduring popularity of Apple products, and stock, have provided Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over after the death of Steve Jobs last year, with a good start. The stock has jumped 45 percent this year to a market value of about $550 billion.
Canaccord Genuity analysts raised their target price on Apple stock to $710 from $665. Dickie Chang, an analyst with technology research firm IDC, said Cook will need to do more in future to keep up the company’s astonishing momentum.
“The iPad is already a pretty mature product and it’s hard to revolutionize it any further,” he said. “I think he may have to come up with another product to mark his stamp. That could come in the form of launching a smaller iPad with a longer battery life, for instance.”
UBS raised its target price to $675 from $550, and said the expected launch of the redesigned iPhone 5 in October was the big catalyst ahead.
