Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) introduced its new iPad Mini along with other products during an event at San Jose, California yesterday. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing unveiled the new products of the company.
The Cupertino-based tech giant surprised the members of the media and the analysts with the latest update of the full-size iPad, which comes with the new lightning connector, and its Wi-Fi connection capability is two times faster than the third generation iPad.
The iPad Mini was the center of attraction during the event. As expected, Schiller compared the smaller iPad with other products particularly with Google’s Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Nexus 7. Schiller touted that the iPad Mini is sleeker, lighter, and it has a bigger screen than the Nexus 7. In addition, he emphasized that the 275,000 iPad applications will run on the iPad Mini.
The audience was interested on the price offering of the iPad Mini. Many expected that it would be competitive, and within the price range of the Nexus 7 and Amazon’s.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Kindle Fire tablets at $199. Analysts expect that the iPad Mini is a bit expensive at around $249 to $299. They were disappointed when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) said that the starting price of the iPad Mini with the 16 GB storage and Wi-Fi connectivity would be $329. The iPad Mini with 32 GB storage would be $429 and the 64 GB would be $529.
Baird Equity Research analyst William Power commented that respondents said they would pay $242 for a 7-inch iPad while $268 for an 8-inch iPad.
Obviously, the reaction to the iPad Mini is unanimous—It is expensive compared with the Nexus 7 and the Kindle tablets. Some analysts believed the price could limit the sales volume for the iPad Mini. Others opine that consumers would be willing to pay a higher price for a premium product especially during the holiday season.
Meanwhile, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) posted its third quarter earnings yesterday. It is the second report for the social network giant as a public company. The company posted $1.26 billion revenue, and a profit of 12 cents per share. Facebook’s third quarter result exceeded the $1.23 billion revenue and 11 cents per share profit consensus estimate of analysts based on the data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Sterne, Agee & Leach analyst Arvind Bhatia commented, “Advertising revenue from mobile was the number that really stood out. They are saying mobile ad revenue was 14 percent of total ad revenue. That would be about $140 million, and I was expecting $40 or $50 million from this.”
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) gained investor confidence as the stock value of the company surge after hours trading. On Wednesday (11:15 AM, ET) Facebook stock is up by 22 percent to $23.74 per share.
