Surface Vs. iPad Battle Gets Competitive As Microsoft Outsells Apple

Thanks to its iPad family, Apple has been comfortably at number one in the ‘Top Brands’ chart for US tablet sales throughout 2015. At least it was until October, when Microsoft’s sales of the Surface devices spiked and pushed Cupertino’s slabs down to second place.

The research on sales figures comes from 1010data Ecom Insights Panel (via WinBeta) and suggests that Apple’s iPad was not the top-selling tablet brand online in October 2015. While it has been on top for the first nine months of the year in terms of online sales, Microsoft took over in month ten with a 45 percent share of online sales, compared to Apple’s 17 percent.

Apple is in the historically unusual role of playing the establishment figure, with Microsoft casting the Surface brand as the scrappy underdog.

Yes, Microsoft is coming from along way back, which means growth in percentage terms will always look far better than that of any incumbent player. October was also the month when the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book went on sale, generating more heat in the sales than previous months. But the Surface trend has generally been upwards, running close to Apple in August and September.

It remains to be seen if the new hardware release numbers are simply a spike from sales to the geekerati and will be exceeded by the expected Apple spike in November thanks to the iPad Pro, or whether the trend will continue. If the latter, Microsoft can look forward to reaching double-figures in the annualised market share on the strength of a strong calendar quarter to close out the year.

There are two things that do stand out to me. The first is that Microsoft is capturing the ‘underdog’ story arc very nicely. No matter that the Surface devices started with Windows 8, have been through multiple iterations, and are only now reaching maturity, the story that the public is taking in is one where Microsoft is back and not only challenging Apple but gathering strategic wins against Cupertino.

The Surface devices, because of their higher price points, are contributing to a much higher ‘average retail price’ of $844, compared to the iPad’s average of $392. Again, there are a number of mitigating circumstances, primarily the lack of ‘budget’ Surface devices and a Surface Mini with a seven-inch screen, but the story that Microsoft is delivering with the Surface is one of desirable hardware, luxury prices that are worth paying, and an exclusive (almost secret) club that you have the privilege of joining.

It’s as if Redmond has been studying the Apple playbook from the first decade of the twenty-first century. And that worked out rather nicely for Apple…