iPhone News Updated

Apple Could Sell 28M iPads in 2011, Analyst Says

Apple Could Sell 28M iPads in 2011, Analyst Says

Apple could sell 28 million iPad tablets in 2011, while the recent refresh of its iPhone and iPod lineup could help the company’s products become the most sought-after gifts this holiday season, according to a Tuesday analyst note.

Consumers could snap up 28 million iPads next year, an estimate that “we believe could still be conservative,” according to Maynard Um, an analyst at the UBS Investment Research.

There is no evidence that iPad purchases are affecting Mac sales, but the popular tablet has been “adversely impacting” PC sales, specifically notebook PCs, Um wrote, prompting many of them to launch iPad competitors. There will not likely be any “viable threats” to the iPad “for some time,” however.

“We believe that a majority of this impact is occurring on the lower end of PC sales as the iPad is priced close enough to this range that it becomes attractive to consumers looking to make purchases within this segment,” he wrote.

Still, the iPad is not “purely cannibalizing PC sales, [since] the functionality of the iPad can not yet fully match the functionality of notebook PCs,” Um said.

If anything, an iPad buyer might be willing to delay a PC purchase, he said.

UBS also said the new iPhone 4 and the recent iPod refresh will help boost sales of both product lines.

The firm joined the “Verizon iPhone in 2011″ chorus, predicting a “CDMA iPhone” – the network used by Verizon – in the first quarter of 2011. If that comes to pass, it could means 52 million iPhones sold, up from the 47.2 million UBS previously predicted.

UBS also predicted 9.5 million iPods sold in September, a number that could jump to 20 million by December, Um wrote. Adding cameras to the iPod touch, as well as the FaceTime feature, could make the device even more attractive.

Apple should “have some of the most highly sought after products in the holiday quarter,” Um concluded.

[Thanks: http://www.pcmag.com]

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