iPad replaces iPod as first Apple product consumers purchase: report - New York Post

The iPod has had a nice run of it, but it’s no longer the gateway drug into the Apple ecosystem it once was. It is fast being replaced by one of the company’s newer devices: The iPad.

More than a quarter of current iPad owners say the tablet is the first Apple product they’ve purchased, according to a new survey from the NPD Group. “iPad sales are growing much faster than any other Apple product has this soon after launch,” says NPD’s Ben Arnold. “In fact, one-in-five Apple owner households has one â€" nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer.”

So the iPad is Apple’s newest ambassador? Not all that big of a surprise considering how well the device has been selling. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during its most recent quarter â€" that’s more than double the number it sold last year. More to the point, the newest model was only actually shipping during the last three weeks or so of the quarter. And, as Apple CEO Tim Cook noted during the company’s Tuesday earnings call, iPad supply was constrained at that time.

And sales to date have been fantastic.

“Just two years after we shipped the initial iPad, we’ve sold 67 million,” Cook said Tuesday. “To put that in some context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, and five years for that many iPods, and over three years for that many iPhones, and we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all of those products.”

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