75% of Early iPad Purchasers Already Own an iPad, Early-Adopter Upgrade Cycle Around 23 Months

iPad AirAccording to a survey by PiperJaffray, 75 percent of U.S. iPad Air purchasers on launch day already owned an iPad, compared to only 58 percent for last year's iPad mini launch.

Gene Munster, a PiperJaffray analyst, believes the U.S. market may be getting slightly more saturated.

Surveying 71 day-one iPad buyers, Munster found that the early-adopter upgrade cycle is around 23 months, significantly shorter than the general public's upgrade cycle of 30 months. Also, the average capacity purchased today was 59.7GB versus 40.5GB for the 3rd-generation iPad launch.

Of the iPad Air buyers who already own an iPad (75%), only 18% expected to keep using the old device and essentially all of those users were owners of an iPad Mini. We noted a similar trend in our iPad Mini survey in that 76% of iPad Mini buyers expected to use the Mini along with their prior full-sized iPad. We believe this makes sense as the majority of consumers that already own an iPad seemed to be replacing it with the Air entirely, but viewed the Mini as a companion device to the larger iPad. In other words, if a consumer owns more than one iPad, it is more likely to be an iPad Air and an iPad Mini than multiple full-sized iPads.

With Apple likely selling millions of iPads this weekend, PiperJaffray's survey of 71 buyers is a small fraction but the broader trends could be consistent with the larger U.S. market. 1 in 5 of today's buyers picked up the 128GB iPad Air, while a 94 percent of buyers said they owned an iPhone.

The iPad Air still remains in stock on the Apple Online Store with nearly all configurations available to ship within 24 hours.

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Use Same Rear Chassis as iPhone 16

Friday July 19, 2024 7:16 am PDT by
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
iPhone 17 Plus Feature

iPhone 17 Lineup Specs Detail Display Upgrade and New High-End Model

Monday July 22, 2024 4:33 am PDT by
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Just Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Monday July 15, 2024 4:44 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple TV Plus Feature 2 Magenta and Blue

Apple TV+ Curbs Costs After Expensive Projects Fail to Capture Viewers

Monday July 22, 2024 5:11 am PDT by
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
bsod

Microsoft Blames European Commission for Major Worldwide Outage

Monday July 22, 2024 11:55 am PDT by
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...

Top Rated Comments

Iconoclysm Avatar
140 months ago
In other words, the very very early adopters are more likely to be fanboys, who buy everything Apple makes and thus already had iPads.

This isn't new, but it's nice to have proof.

At some point, people have confused the word fanboy with satisfied customers.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Patriot24 Avatar
140 months ago
I love my iPad 2. But none of the iPads after it have been worthy enough for me to upgrade to.

If a retina display isn't enough to make you consider upgrading, you'll likely be rocking that iPad 2 forever. In a device like a tablet where the display is 90% of the experience, I can't imagine what else you would want Apple to focus on.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Makosuke Avatar
140 months ago
The very general trend is probably correct, but a sample size of 71 seems awfully small to get an accurate statistical representation of the trends involved here. It's not small enough to be anecdotal, but I'm willing to bet the error bars are pretty big (especially if the distribution wasn't geographically broad).

I'm just disappointed that my statistics class was long enough ago that I don't remember how to calculate this properly from an estimated population of, say, a million or two buyers.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rogifan Avatar
140 months ago
Played with it at Apple today. Very impressive. I would have brought one home if the Notes app was easier on the eyes. The harsh bright white background of Notes was the dealbreaker.

I'm not a huge iOS 7 fan but I could definitely use it if Notes was the old style. I sent feedback to Apple suggesting it be considered as an accessibility option. Not real hopeful but nothing to lose.

The iPad Air is really something. Check it out.
Apple's notes app was a deal breaker for you? Wow. I think I could deal with that and probably find something better in the App Store.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Teste Avatar
140 months ago
In other words, the very very early adopters are more likely to be fanboys, who buy everything Apple makes and thus already had iPads.

This isn't new, but it's nice to have proof.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rogifan Avatar
140 months ago
I can't believe people take anything Gene Munster says seriously.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)