so Ipad sales drop for the first time yoy for a quarter, and profits dropped as well. Should Apple decrease the prices? Should they be worried?

[famousringo]

outlawauron said:

famousringo said:

outlawauron said:
I think it's funny how Apple just seems to be so willing to let other companies use common sense to steal all of their customers while they get regulated to a small minority. Happened with PCs, happened with smartphones, and now it's happening with tablets.

Apple is still gaining customers in phones, and still gaining them in PCs. Your assertion is patently false. In fact, the iPad has made Apple the largest PC manufacturer in the world by units, nevermind profit:

http://canalys.com/newsroom/one-six-pcs-shipped-q4-2012-was-ipad

80% of this quarter's drop in iPad sales is due to reduced channel inventory. In other words, sellthrough is nearly the same as the iPad 3's launch quarter, but Apple isn't restocking the shelves in preparation for the next fleet of iPads.

lol. iPad are tablets, not PCs. They're also losing ground to their competitors.

Apple lost its dominant hold on the market as Andriod is now the market leader for smartphones. Apple sits around 20-25% marketshare in PCs, they were once market leaders here too.

Microsoft will tell you that tablets are PCs. You think they don't know what they're talking about? That they'd gamble with Windows on a whim? Tablets are PCs in that they are literally Personal Computers and in that they are displacing conventional PCs for the same use cases, plus a few more. Please tell me how many quarters of contraction the conventional PC market needs to endure before you'll accept that tablets are PCs.

Apple never had a dominant hold on the phone market or the PC market. Apple's pre-iPad best showing in PC marketshare came in 1984, when the Apple II and Mac earned a combined 21% slice of the market:

http://jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137

They did lose customers in PCs, but now they've gained them back with the iPad and I doubt that momentum is spent.

As for the phone market, Apple has 9% and is still growing. No lost customers here:

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2482816