While Apple hasn’t announced specific figures for the iPad Air’s launch weekend yet, most indications are that the tablet is performing well. Supplies began weakening over the weekend, and carriers are seeing healthy sales.
In fact, AT&T just issued a press release this afternoon saying its iPad activations increased more than 200% over the past three days compared to last year’s launch weekend. The reason? Customers are excited for the new Air…
Here’s the press release:
“iPad activations on AT&T increased more than 200% over the past three days compared to last year’s launch weekend, driven by consumer excitement around the new iPad Air and the popularity of AT&T Mobile Share, which lets customers add an iPad to their existing data plan for just $10 a month. We also saw strong demand for AT&T Next, which offers customers an iPad for $0 down on the nation’s fastest and most reliable 4G LTE network.”
Now, there are several things worth noting here. For one, there has been confusion about whether or not AT&T meant sales had doubled or triple over last year. Well, it just cleared things up with AllThingsD, and it meant tripled.
Two, Apple released 2 iPads within 6 months of each other last year. The iPad 4 was essentially the iPad 3 with an A6X chip, Lightning connector and other small changes. So needless to say, it didn’t draw many lines at retailers.
That being said, the first iPad mini also launched around this time last year. So that could also go on the list of things to consider when comparing the numbers. This year’s iPad mini hasn’t hit yet, and won’t for another few weeks.
At any rate, no matter which way you look at AT&T’s announcement, the jump in activations is a good thing. It’ll be interesting to see what cumulative iPad Air sales look like when Apple announces them later today/week/month.