Apple iPad User Analysis

There’s no question that the iPad is the latest “it” product, with first-day sales exceeding 300,000 and some analysts projecting as many as 7 million units sold by year’s end.  Inside Yahoo!, we’re just as interested in the iPad phenomenon. Just a week after the iPad’s launch, we began to analyze the behavior of the first iPad users on the Yahoo! network.  While some of the findings were expected, there were a few surprises that popped.

As expected within the classic early-adopter profile, we identified a male skew in the 35-44 age group among these early users.  In fact, among all users, men outnumber women 2:1. Given the economy, people with higher earning power were probably the first to buy the iPad. The first Yahoo! iPad users were 94% more likely to be affluent consumers with solid wealth and strong incomes than typical U.S. Yahoo! users.

The sweet spot for the Yahoo! iPad user is within the 35-44 age category, where the population composition is 36% higher than the typical Yahoo! user. Additionally, iPad users over-indexed within the age ranges 30-54 compared to the average U.S. Yahoo! user.

The demographic profile of the iPad Yahoo! user closely followed the interests on Yahoo! that we would suspect: Flickr, Finance, Sports and News were all among the Yahoo! properties most frequently visited by the Yahoo! user.  Flickr usage by iPad users is 143% higher than average. Because the iPad is meant for Internet browsing and media consumption, visits to Flickr seem to be a logical choice.

One surprising data point is the non-U.S. IP traffic on the iPad that’s coming to Yahoo! During the measurement period, the iPad has only been available for purchase in the U.S. market; however, we observe approximately 10% of IP traffic coming from Europe and Asia Pacific. Specifically, the U.K., France, and Germany are the top countries in Europe, and Taiwan and Hong Kong make up the most traffic in Asia Pacific.

Because the iPad runs on the same OS as the iPhone, it is not surprising to see many iPad users own another Apple product. Nearly half (48%) of Yahoo! iPad users own an iPhone and had visited Yahoo! on the iPhone previously.

We’re going to continue watching this segment closely in terms of what media they’re consuming. Stay tuned for more!

Ashley Cheng
Yahoo! Insights