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Heavy US sales means international launch of iPad delayed by a month

Mike Butcher

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Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
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Apple says that although it has “delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week” the demand for the iPad in sales and pre-orders is “far higher than we predicted”. The upshot of all these US sales? The international launch – that’s including us here in Europe folks – will be postponed by one month, until the end of May.

However, make a date in your diary as Apple says it will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10.

Full release can be found on CrunchGear.

I guess we’ll just have to go and get a WePad instead huh.

UPDATE: Vodafone, O2 and Orange have confirmed they will supply the iPad to customers in the UK from next month. No prices are yet available for mobile broadband access form any of the networks. Vodafone will offer “dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK”. O2 will offer “dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in the UK”. Orange will offer “dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in France, UK, Spain and Switzerland”. The mobile companies are lobbying Apple to tie iPads into their existing tariffs but Apple prefers the pre-pay deals so it looks like there will be a mixture of both.

Note by Robin Wauters:

At the recent unveiling of the iPhone OS 4.0, someone inquired about the success of the iPad in the U.S. potentially threatening the ‘late April’ launch date for the rest of the world. The response of Apple head honcho Steve Jobs to that question?

“No, we said we’re launching internationally later in April, and we’re launching later in April.”

For the record: that was merely six days ago.

CrunchBase Information
iPad
Information provided by CrunchBase
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  • http://www.businessads.net BusinessAds

    At least first bugs are probably already known till then.

    • Joel Fiser

      This is obviously Jobsian spin. The iPad is NOT selling briskly. You can buy your limit in any Apple store.

      The iPad is and will continue to be a flop. It was a terrible idea from the start. The coming weeks and months will bear this out.

      • SFTitan

        You’re a dimwit. The iPad is a success and will continue to sell and be a gamechanger. And this coming from a PC person.

      • Joel Fiser

        Dimwit that I am, I’ll put forth 2 possible reasons for the delay:

        1. The problems with the iPad’s WiFi are well-documented. Apple wants time to fix this before shipping to the rest of the World.

        2. Jobs sees the iPad is not selling as he’d hoped. He’s holding off and may ~never~ ship to many of the overseas markets.

      • meeka

        I’m thinking the 3G preorders were a lot more than expected, and they are scrambling to manufacture more of those than planned, delaying things. Remember AT&T saying they thought iPad wouldn’t affect them much because everyone would be on WiFi? I thought, “Bunk, wait till people see those big Google maps, and iPad navigation apps!”

        There is a lot of 3G demand, more than AT&T – and Apple – thought. Reasons to get and not get the ipad?.

      • Jaxon Triggs

        Yeah obviously the real message is that he’s covering up poor sales. Thats why he’s going to shaft the Canadian market and the entire rest of the world. They wouldn’t help sales so why bother right?

        Find Scissors and run with them.

      • Sean

        Your right the iPad is a flop and will continue to be…except for its sales.

    • Joel Fiser

      Here’s the wording from Apple’s PR page:

      “Although we have DELIVERED more than 500,000 iPads during its first week”…

      DELIVERED – means “delivered” to the stores – does not mean sold to consumers.

      • http://twitter.com/retlaw7 retlaw7

        It’s cute that you hate it so much, even though you’ve never played with one. Jobs said in his keynote last week that they had SOLD (as you so put it) more than 450k, I’m sure that they have sold more than 50k in a week making it 500K SOLD

      • KaiLin

        500k is even lesser than the initial prediction of 750k for the first day itself, and it takes them 2 weeks to achieve that.
        so how many copies does Apple have in hand?
        Jobs is just a lier.

      • sienna

        I’m thinking the 3G preorders were a lot more than expected, and they are scrambling to manufacture more of those than planned, delaying things. Remember AT&T saying they thought iPad wouldn’t affect them much because everyone would be on WiFi? I thought, “Bunk, wait till people see those big Google maps, and iPad navigation apps!”

        There is a lot of 3G demand, more than AT&T – and Apple – thought. Reasons to get and not get the ipad?

      • Sean

        Its funny that people are still clinging to the hope that the iPad will fail to sell

  • Richard

    As a user, and future owner of one of these devices I’m disappointed.

    As a developer, I’m angry, International developers are now at a severe disadvantage to US based developers without great expense to themselves, of finding a way to import the iPad from the USA.

    US based developers have been able to see how their app looks, feels and works on a physical iPad whilst those of us not in the US have only had the simulator which is simply not good enough. Anyone who has developed anything more than a one screen app for the iPhone will know that the simulator often behaves differently to the ARM architecture of the iPhone itself.

    I’m not asking for Apple to give developers discounts, special advance access, free shipping, etc. All I am asking is for Apple to allow a level playing field for developers and so that international developers that have PAID to register in the iPhone Developer Program should have a way of gaining access to the devices to be able to develop and test on.

    • Patrick

      +1

      This is entirely true. I’ve been trying to get ahold of a unit here in the UK to test on, but 100% markup on eBay is just not a good deal. It would make life so much easier if devs could get their hands on the devices at launch…

    • Rob Hall

      With 200,000 apps in the store, developers have become a cheap commodity. And Apple has already shown how little it cares about what they think.

      • dwgtd

        Well said. You are exactly right. Just some helpful advice to any app developer who’s currently making money, and I don’t say this in a mean way at all:

        Save your money and keep on learning other programming languages as well. Once the App Store is saturated with apps, well you know. Increased supply, decreased demand.

        Apple may also decide to get into app production as well. Why make 40% – 60% when they can make 100%?

    • http://mmisoftware.co.uk NickMMI

      I agree with Richard, and Bob makes a good point. As a developer I am pleased the iPad is delayed due to its success as that means demand is high, and therefore there will be a lot of users wanting to buy Apps. As a European based developer I am frustrated that the iPad is delayed as I really want to get my hands on one to test out our iPad App. I was really hoping for the April date, but I couldn’t see it happening, even after Steve Jobs said last Thursday it was still on track.

      • Jaxon Triggs

        I felt the same way about the coming dead line which increasingly was not looking realistic, especially since they never announced any form of preorders.

        As a developer you should give a lot more than a casual care about getting the device unless you’re just saying you have a developer account but never ship anything.

        By the time you get a device and develop / test on it there is a massive chance whatever you wanted to make would already exist and be on the store courtesy of a US developer. If you’re okay with competition getting a 2 month head start exclusive, you really don’t care very much do you.

    • Jaxon Triggs

      Yeah, absolutely. Why don’t they offer a way for international developers to order an ipad and have it shipped to them?

      Bull$hit National laws, dealmaking and garbage politics are the reason.

      This is so frigging lame…

  • hello
  • Arvind

    I smell defects in the product. Smart messaging is the bane of Steve’s aura. Am I being over skeptical?

    • gaslight

      I agree with Mike’s sarcasm and Arvind this is about fixing the product not too much demand.

      • Krugeri

        I love the cynicism here. :-)

        As a public company in the US there isn’t much Apple can hide or lie about regarding orders, deliveries and supply channel inventory.

        We will all know soon enough if the iPad is a ‘hit’ and it will hardly come from the anti-Apple reactionaries with a tenuous grip on reality.

    • Dave

      My bet is on fixing the placement / implementation of the wifi hardware. It’s rare for Apple to quickly acknowledge problems that their users complain about, but this one they did … publicly. I’m guessing they’re trying to fix/ improve this before an international launch.

    • dwgtd

      +1

      Supply is not low due to demand. Supply is low (and several people knew it was going to be low ahead of time) due to available materials on supply and probably some de-bugging going on as well such as with the wi-fi.

      I had read about this in either TechCrunch or one of the other tech sites originally about a month ago. Sorry I can’t find the link to the old article.

      A few people had mentioned specifics and quite honestly they predicted today’s announcement perfectly. They said that all of this was known ahead of time, and that Apple was not really even making that many iPads. Because of that the supply would become low. Afterall, if you don’t make many, there won’t be many to sell.

      Once the supply got low, the PR people would start in with their “Oh my God the iPad is selling so well, we’re out” marketing. Looks like the media’s buying it.

      I would have thought the opposite from looking at sales numbers. 600,000. Is that it?

      I am a MacBookPro & iPhone owner, so no negative bias here.

      • praev

        Dude. I hope someone actually pays you to copy and paste your deluded antiapple hate on tech blogs, thats just pathetic otherwise.

        You posted the same conspiracy theory verbatim on mashable’s article and god knows where else.

        Engadget writers were right, Apple does bring out the crazies.

      • dwgtd

        Whoops, I forgot that you are only allowed to read one tech news web site. And that if you do read more than one site, that your opinion has to be totally different on each one you read. Now, if you go back and take a look at what I wrote you will see that it was not copied and pasted because the content is different.

        Hey wait a minute if you read Engadget are you allowed to read and comment here too?

        Just because a person has negative comments about Apple does not make them crazy.

        Thanks.

      • Mark A

        @dwgtd

        Epic pwning, my man.

      • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

        @dwgtd

        I can’t speak for anyone else, but I thought you were crazy when you scoffed at 600,000 sales, which hasn’t even been announced by Apple. And even if that number were true, how many non-Apple device sell that many units in less than two weeks?

        If that is your definition of failure, what is your definition of success?

      • dwgtd

        My apologies. I thought I had read 600k on some site earlier this morning but it turns out that it’s 500k according to the content in another site which had a link to the announcement from Apple here:

        http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/14advisory_ipad.html

        As far as my definition of success. I can’t say. Not my product, so I can’t make that determination. But the way Apple’s talking about it every man, woman and child should have one by now. So the 500,000 figure falls a little short.

      • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

        “But the way Apple’s talking about it every man, woman and child should have one by now.”

        What the heck does that mean? Give me an example of a statement made by Apple that suggested that.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

    But all the Apple Haters told me all the iPad were rotting on the shelves at Best Buy!

    Note: I went to a local Best Buy in my town (we don’t have an Apple store yet) and they were sold out. That was a week ago. Now if iPads are selling out in my town, which isn’t big enough to have an Apple Store yet, what does that say about bigger cities?

    • Brad

      Nothing.

      All the Best Buys here sold out early on launch day. The Apple Store had tons in stock. All it means is they didn’t allocate Best Buy a lot of product. It says nothing about the overall sales or the sales through the Apple Store.

    • http://manuelfaderny.wordpress.com Manuel

      “Small towns”, “small shops” had therefore less, let’s call it a “small number” of iPads in the first place, so your conclusion is not that correct. But I’m very worried – as an Austrian who wants an iPad.

      • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

        I don’t really live in a small town, more like a mid-sized city. Apple was supposed to open an Apple Store in a local mall, but it’s been delayed. And the Best Buy is the same size as the ones I’ve seen in major cities.

        I asked a Best Buy employee when they would get another shipment and he said “late April” at the earliest and he wasn’t very confident about that date. That tells me high demand.

        On the day I saw a demo unit, I had to wait in line (there were 4 demo units). Everyone in the store was in the Apple section.

  • http://iphonetuga.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/lancamento-internacional-do-ipad-adiado/ Lançamento internacional do Ipad adiado? « iPhone Tuga

    [...] 14/04/2010 IphoneTuga Publicar um comentário Go to comments De acordo com o blog da TechCrunch, a Apple decidiu adiar por um mês o lançamento do Ipad aqui pela Europa. Talvez devido à procura [...]

  • http://jacobian.biz jacobian

    well at least when the ipad go international then everything will be good and not buggy.because all the bug had gone and there will be many apps available for the ipad.just take our time then. :-)

  • http://www.myallo.com lepton

    I’m thinking the 3G preorders were a lot more than expected, and they are scrambling to manufacture more of those than planned, delaying things. Remember AT&T saying they thought iPad wouldn’t affect them much because everyone would be on WiFi? I thought, “Bunk, wait till people see those big Google maps, and iPad navigation apps!”

    There is a lot of 3G demand, more than AT&T – and Apple – thought.

  • Dude

    Just waitin’ for the courier…

    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

      Got a couple of years?

  • zip williams

    @lepton
    Your avitar is a picture of you talking on the phone? Really? It is so rare to see someone talking on the phone these days. Good job.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=516859481 Andrew MacDonald

    FFS Apple!!!

    As a long-time fan of your products, having spent thousands with your company, the fact you can’t keep a promised date is really disappointing.

    I was originally pissed that you couldn’t arrange a unified shipping date worldwide, considering that huge cash pile your sat on, but I was happy to wait an extra four weeks.

    Now it’s being delayed again??? Not happy. :-(

    Well, more disappointed than anything.

  • http://www.myerfi.com Nitram

    It is a technical issue! Check out the fact that Israeli Airport officials are taking any IPad that is entering into Israel, due to frequency issues with the device.
    Israeli officials said that the IPad is not using Israeli and European standard frequencies and thus it cannot be shipped to those countries, hence, the delay to fix it.

    • bunk

      Even if they are, that is some complete and utter nonsense.

    • http://wordskill.com donnacha | WordSkill

      That is just Israel sending out a clear signal to the world that it is an authoritarian backwater that does not really understand technology or respect individual rights.

      • Jaxon Triggs

        Yeah, and who gives two squirts of piss what Israel does anyway. Its like one massive high stakes reality TV show (that sucks).

  • http://dalelarson.com/2010/04/ipad-hype-exceeded-only-by-results.html iPad hype exceeded only by results : Dale Larson

    [...] fact, they’re selling so fast that Apple has been forced to delay the international launch of iPad (just six days after insisting the launch would not be delayed by US [...]

  • Ben

    Looks like I made the right choice ordering one from a mail forwarding company to the UK. Ive had it a week now – love it.

    Of course, for a rapidly increasing sum I could be persuaded to part with it. Watch eBay prices soar…

  • Joey Y

    It’s an “upside” if people who want to buy a product have to wait? Couldn’t TC try not deciding what people are better off doing with their own money?

  • Hong Li An

    I done know about you guy but I got my iPad here in China back in March 23rd the local Apple store order for me it came in a little bit wrong the color was red instead of the white that I ordered but overall it a very good iPad also the battery life only 60 minutes not the 8 hour they avertise.

    • Jaxon Triggs

      +9000 +1

      BAHAHAHAHAAHhaahahahaha

      You win the internets

  • sienna
  • man

    In NYC there are no 16GBs, some stores have the 32GB and all have the 64GB. The question is whether Apple produced less 16GB pads to keep the price low and then ask people to buy the the more expensive units. I don’t think its clear what is the value in a 32/64GB device, why pay more… Any way, I’m waiting for 3G

    • Jaxon Triggs

      No offense but if you can’t fill up a 16G ipad / iphone to the point where it is constantly annoying, you probably don’t like music, apps or photos.

      I can more than fill an entire iphone with just the music I want to hear. Throw in 100 apps (plus the “Other” data stored for them) and some photos, and all the sizes are seeming small, even 64g.

      Buying the 16G is a sucker’s play for cheap noobs.

      • http://wordskill.com donnacha | WordSkill

        Yeah, 16GB makes no sense at all, unless you are buying iPads for some sort of business use, such as audio-visual tours for museums or for taking credit card payments in a store.

  • http://twitter.com/mikebutcher Mike Butcher

    We just published an update on which carriers will be providing mobile 3G access. check the post.

  • steve

    My guess is this delay is about technical issues as well as a marketing ploy to build up the iPad hype internationally. Apple probably wants to create a buying frenzy around the shortage or perceived shortage of iPads as they head overseas.

  • http://www.ipadica.com/2010/04/ipad-isnt-arrived-to-europe-until-the-end-of-may/ iPad isn’t arrived to Europe until the end of May

    [...] Source: Mike Butcher, TechCrunch [...]

  • http://fwd.blog.etrend.sk/applepie/2010/04/15/apple-odklada-predaj-ipadu-v-europe/ Apple odkladá predaj iPadu v Európe | ApplePie | Blogy | FWD

    [...] len za veľkou mlákou a s predikciou, že európsky trh sa iPadu možno dočká ešte v apríli. Portál TechCrunch.com píše, že Steve Jobs tak trošku zavádzal. „Sľúbili sme, že spustíme internacionálny predaj [...]

  • http://heave-ho.org Shane

    “Joel Fiser” — what’s the basis for your remarks, since you’re so definitive? Are you in the loop, do have access to actual sales data or are just one of the countless Windows PC people who are haters of all things Apple just because it came from Apple. The iPad is selling well and will continue to sell well partly due to the reality that more and more compelling apps. will come to market for it; making even more useful and compelling than it is right now, as that says a lot.

    What next are you going try and extoll the virtues of Windows Vista, oh that’s right that piece of shit, sad ass excuse of bloated code went down like a flaming barn — so much so the name has completely disappeared from the Microsoft product lexicon — Vista = shitty view.

    So, turn on your Zune player, plug in your ear phones and rock out while wait for the latest ‘service patch’ for shitty Windows to download and install.

    You Windows people think just because you constitute a large herd that your OS is better — what a f____g joke.

    At least Apple makes money actually creating and producing products that work; just because you Windows haters don’t like them, doesn’t mean they’re shit. Get real.

    Enjoy your Zune, and say, Moo to the rest of your herd!

  • http://socialshoppingnews.landheremedia.com/2010/05/07/new-details-on-ipad%e2%80%99s-international-rollout/ New Details On iPad’s International Rollout | Social Shopping News

    [...] of fresh iPad cash for comfort)— less than one month ago (at the iPhone OS 4.0 reveal) he was adamant that the international launch would be in April. CrunchBase Information iPad Information [...]

  • http://juegando.com/uncategorized/new-details-on-ipad%e2%80%99s-international-rollout/ New Details On iPad’s International Rollout | Juegando

    [...] of fresh iPad cash for comfort)— less than one month ago (at the iPhone OS 4.0 reveal) he was adamant that the international launch would be in [...]

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