Too Early to Make Judgments About iPad, Nexus One

Some accounts of Apple iPad sales have suggested sales were disappointing for the first full day. Similar reports have accompanied the launch of the Motorola Droid and the Google Nexus One. The point is that observers are spending way too much time commenting on sales over a few days or even months.
Some trends take many months to years to emerge. According to comScore, 45.4 million people in the United States owned smartphones in an average month during the December to February period, up 21 percent from the three months ending November 2009.

RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. market with 42.1 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.3 percentage points versus the prior period.

Apple ranked second with 25.4 percent share followed by Microsoft at 15.1 percent, Google at 9.0 percent (up 5.2 percentage points), and Palm at 5.4 percent.

Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share as more Android-compatible devices are introduced to the market. So the point is not necessarily how well the Nexus One sells, but whether Android devices are taking more share in the market, which clearly is the case.

According to comScore, over the three month period between November 2009 and February 2010, Android gained five share points, while Apple was flat, Palm lost nearly two percent and Microsoft lost four share points. Research in Motion gained about 1.3 share points.

Similarly, it doesn't matter how many iPads Apple did or did not sell on the first day. What matters is whether Apple can uncover a new device niche between smartphones and notebooks or netbooks, or whether it can redefine at least a sizable portion of the netbook and notebook markets.

Nobody can make such judgements after a day, or even a week or a month.