What is the market for tablets?

[walkitout]

Look! A use for Math!

4 million children are born every year in the US. About.
Half of all children are in depressingly poor families.

18 years of children (people are probably still buying crap for their 19 year olds, at least at a rate to make up for the people who don't buy tablets for sub 2 year olds)

multiplied by

2 million (half of 4 million)

equals

36 million tablets.

That's the _kid_ market for tablets. If Amazon is truly moving about a million kFires a week, and BKS is moving, say, a quarter of a million Nook Colors a week, and some number of children already have iPads and/or will get them out of the million iPads a week that Apple moves, then every kid in the US that isn't poor (that is to say, half of the kids in the US) will have their own tablet by some time in the second half of 2012.

If it all went to kids. Which it is not, not by a long shot.

What fraction of the cheap tablet market is going to kids? Hmmm. A quickie review of the devices I have bought for friends and family produces a fraction under three quarters, but more than half.

I wonder if I believe this result. What are the implications of living in a world in which it isn't weird for ten year olds to have a tablet in the pocket of their jacket? Is the man-bag about to acquire a juvenile equivalent? A boy bag? Will the fanny pack become cool? Hmmmm...

Could be adorable. A sample on Etsy for the younger end of the range:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81211684/tools-boy-toddler-messenger-bag

Comments

[jkonrath.livejournal.com]

How many of those parents who bought their kids an iPad 2 last year are going to buy them an iPad 3 next year, for fear that their children will be tormented by their peers for having the equivalent of hand-me-down goodwill clothes on the first day of school? So, up that number by some amount - not sure how much, though.

Also, how many parents replace a tablet when it goes missing or breaks? I think if I was a kid and lost or broke an iPad, my parents would give me the "this is an important life lesson" lecture rather than whipping out the plastic at the Apple store, but I'm guessing more parents with the disposable income are in the latter category. So, up the number more.

I think aside from "this will get you laid", one of the best sales strategies is "if you don't get this for your kid, they will be a ditch digger instead of a doctor or lawyer".

small iPad and big kFire rumors

[walkitout]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111215PD209.html

Is it to soon to say things like Jobs-is-rolling-over-etc.? He hated the idea of a small tablet, iirc.

There have been persistent rumors about a larger kFire as well:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111121PD200.html

Our house has been mixed all along (R. is persistently Windows, with a preference for AMD chips over Intel; I've been persistently Apple); it was easy to add the kFire with no competition in that niche and I'd had a model from each kindle release as well. I have no idea how I'll react to the reality of big tablets simultaneously from Apple and Amazon and little tablets, ditto. I have a very hard time believing I'm going to keep buying multiples of all of them.

Altho you never know. I've done stupid things before.

[jkonrath.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard rumors about a smaller iPad (but haven't been looking) - but I heard a rumor about a bigger iPad - not that much bigger, but a bezel-less screen. Apple's been pretty smart about not having an insane amount of screen sizes and having screens be an even multiple, so I'm curious if a physically smaller display will have the same pixel count at higher density or what.

I did see that the newest dev versions of iOS are being peppered with fake device IDs, like the iPhone 8 and iPad 17, just to throw off people who try to look there for clues on future devices. That's hilarious.