Microsoft's Kinect Selling Twice As Fast As The iPad

The adoption rate of the iPad was celebrated as the fastest ever in electronics history. Now, less than a year after the tablet's launch, Microsoft has usurped that distinction with Kinect.

Kinect, Microsoft's new controller-free gaming peripheral for the Xbox 360, has been selling at a breakneck pace, with 2.5 million sensors sold within its first 25 days on the market (Read reviews of the Kinect).

As ReadWriteWeb notes, this means consumers have been purchasing Kinect twice as quickly as the iPad, which hit the 2 million mark two months after its release. Based on Kinect's sales thus far, ReadWriteWeb estimates that Microsoft is selling 100,000 Kinects per day. With approximately 4.5 million iPads sold every 90 days, Apple is moving an average of 50,000 iPads per day.

There are some caveats to these calculations--although they aren't likely to stop the Redmond giant from toasting its victory against Apple.

The Kinect figures include sales over Black Friday, typically the busiest shopping day of the year. And Microsoft's gaming gadget ($150-$400 each) is around half as expensive as Apple's iPad, which starts at $500. The two are also very different devices, one a gaming accessory to be used in the home, the other a portable tablet computer.

Still, the numbers suggest Microsoft has a hit on its hands, good news for a company looking for an "in" with consumers and high hopes of enticing non-gamers to fire up their Xboxes.

Microsoft hopes to sell a total of 5 million units by the end of the holiday season. Do you think they can meet that goal?

HuffPost's Prediction Games HuffPost's Predict The News!

Will Microsoft sell 5 million Kinects by the end of the year?

• Yes

• No

Predict it!

Top Players

Beat your friends!

Connect through Facebook or Twitter and challenge your friends

Connect with Twitter Connect with Facebook

My friends

Comments

[thetokensquare]

05:01 PM on 12/17/2010

I like apples, I like oranges ... I want a Kinect.

[PathofTotality]

01:52 PM on 12/16/2010

Bought one last week for my son as a Christmas present (........OK, I play also) and last night his older one died. Needless to say he got his present early and though I wasn't overly excited about the Kinect I will say it's pretty cool. Once you calibrate the camera to the room and a person you can control the XBox functions (i.e. dashboard) by waving your hand or voice recognition. All the icons can be activated by using your hand in mid air. Money well spent in my opinion.

[mallsta]

11:58 PM on 12/12/2010

This is extremely popular in electronics stores. People literally flock to the Kinect systems that are set up for people to try. Not sure if those same people are actually buying the product, but they sure seem to enjoy it when playing it in the store.

[Lisa Spurgeon Bullock]

04:41 PM on 12/07/2010

I can definitely see the attraction of the Kinect. I bought a Wii a few months ago and kind of wish I would have waited and just got the Kinect instead, but I do still love the Wii. The good thing about the Kinect coming out right now is that is fairly cheap, a lot of people already have an X-box 360 so this is a great addition and makes the perfect gift for kids this Christmas. That is why I can see it a huge seller.

I personally would LOVE to get an I-pad but I can not afford it right now. I just can not rationalize spending the money on an I-pad when I already have a netbook and an I-pod touch. When the cost of the I-pad comes down I will surely purchase one but until then I will just have to be happy with what I do have.

I will say that it is good to hear people are out buying something at all. It is funny to me to see headlines like this and then to hear people say we are in a Depression. In my mind it is hard to equate what all we do have today compared with the trying times people experienced back during the true Depression. We are all so lucky to be alive today, no matter how hard we thing we have it.

[Acert]

02:39 AM on 12/06/2010

So they succeeded by ripping off the Wii.

[hypnotoad72]

10:42 AM on 12/21/2010

And innovated by negating the need for a controller that doubles as a projectile weapon useful for destroying TV sets. :) 

The real question will be, "how long before the red ring of death" strangles the Kinect...

[FunkSands]

12:33 AM on 12/05/2010

I just played this at a friend of my son's house.  Very cool, but very flaky interface. 

[totalliberal]

11:52 PM on 12/04/2010

Did anyone ask Steve Jobs if this is OK? Has the Jobs ruled on this yet? We Jobsians await the masters decision. All hail the Jobs.

[blurredmolly]

11:20 AM on 12/05/2010

Mac problem?

[Shailendra SVK]

01:02 AM on 12/04/2010

I dont think the comparision is apt...both are different products used for different purposes...but still i own both of them and i'm very much satisfied with Microsoft's Kinect..they put a lot of hardwork for it i guess..didnt checked ps3 move yet but i will try to get my hands on that too so i cant comment which one is better among move and kinect...As for iPad there is no competition for that in tablet market..

Gaming on iPad is one thing i love..check this one out if anyone own an ipad here..:)

http://techdrag.com/top-10-best-ipad-games.html

[admrob]

12:06 PM on 12/04/2010

The comparison is idiotic at best.

1) the Xbox has an installed base in the tens of millions (now how many of those consoles are actually working remains a mystery).

2) Kinect is about 1/3 the price of the cheapest iPad.

3) They are not competitors or in the same market.

Huffpost wins again. Hey Ariana, I will work for your site writing headlines. I can come up with bad puns and non-sequiturs. As far as education I have a Political Science B.A. with an English minor and a J.D. and I'm even admitted to practice in one of the U.S. States!

[ogaraj]

02:52 AM on 12/05/2010

The article is about the record setting adoption rate of an electronic device. It doesnt matter what market a given devices belongs to. Its just more interesting when it happens to be that Apple had the record, and now MS does.

All of your alleged education doesn't seem to make up for a reading comprehension issue.

[hypnotoad72]

10:44 AM on 12/21/2010

20 years ago, a computer far superior to the Mac was lambasted as a 'game machine' and died because the company didn't counter the accusations.  The machine was the Commodore Amiga, the most advanced multimedia machine of the time.  When PC hardware finally caught up, system requirements to have comparable multitasking and multimedia were bloated.

[Axekick]

12:12 AM on 12/04/2010

I would be equally as interested to know how much Apple spent advertising the iPad compared to Microsoft's advertising budget for Kinect.

[mainstreethost]

11:33 PM on 12/03/2010

Wait until after the holidays and see all the pros and cons of both, you know there will a plethora of reviews. With the emergence of all the new tablets on the market we will see a bigger rise in sale for the iPad in six months.

[Morgantheaxe]

05:51 PM on 12/03/2010

Yeh well General electic sold ten times more water heaters last year so THERE!!!

[Axekick]

12:11 AM on 12/04/2010

LMAO. . . (and I needed it, thanks)

[hypnotoad72]

10:48 AM on 12/21/2010

LOL!

[Rrhain]

05:31 PM on 12/03/2010

WRT the "apples and oranges" comments, please note the projected markets:

You want an iPad? Great. You don't need to have anything else, really. Anybody with the money to spare and an interest in an electronic device is your market.

You want a Kinect? Great. Do you have an Xbox? No? Not so great. That controller ain't gonna work with your PS3 or Wii or computer or iPad or.... Your market is restricted to only those who have an Xbox.

So not only is the Kinect doing well, it's beating the pants off the iPad as it's selling more of them to a smaller market. Of course, this also means that the bloom is going to be off the rose fairly quickly once all the people who might possibly want a Kinect acquire one.

The Kinect is more popular, but the iPad has more staying power.

[tonewheel]

03:16 PM on 12/03/2010

Have to agree with many of the "apples and oranges" comments here.
How about comparing the kinect to the new Chevy Volt?

[XPat100]

02:03 PM on 12/03/2010

I always thought there was a difference between apples and oranges. I guess not.

[Andrew Wojtkowski]

12:39 PM on 12/03/2010

Actually, while I agree that this study is not the best, the comparison is valid- the timeframe is too short.

iPad sales have tanked. Why? Apple's business model is "Sell it to them before they realize it's garbage, and when they finally realize what they've been sold, release a new model and sell that to them before they realize that one is garbage."

Let's face it, FOXCON is almost undeniably THE worst manufacturer of computer parts. Anyone who builds electronics knows this. So why do Apple products rarely die? Well, because you're often only utilizing half the limits of the components. So a cheap 600 Watt power supply won't blow if you're only running 100W off it, no matter how horrible it is. But you're paying the price tag for the 600W. After the horrible components, they go overboard on a screen nearly twice to three times as expensive than the alternatives. They act like it's a feature, but you pay for it! Would you buy a Samsung TV for $3000 if you could get an LG with nearly identical specs for $1000? Most people would not.

That being said, the price tag of the materials for an iPad are only $225. That means that between assembly and profit, Apple gets $275 per iPad. That's with overpriced parts, and with horribly manufactured parts.

[0u812]

01:13 PM on 12/03/2010

Agreed on Foxconn's computer components products but as a contract manufacturer they've put out an amazingly high-quality product (especially notable because it's the same crappy company that makes $20 ATX PSUs) in the numerous iPhone and iPod models going back to the beginning. I'm no Apple aplogist, so say what you want (and I'll likely agree) about Apple's slimy marketing practices with feature rollouts, but iPhones and iPods get used and beaten on daily, and that kind of use far exceeds the flimsiness you're suggesting.

[tonewheel]

03:15 PM on 12/03/2010

iPad sales have tanked?

How about a citation for that newsflash? Tanked?