Yahoo Search Sees Boost From iPad

Yahoo gauged the first wave of iPad users who accessed Yahoo content in May and found they skewed mostly male and affluent. Now more women are accessing Yahoo from the iPad, according to Yahoo’s  latest results published here on 8 July.

Yahoo Insights specialist Ashley Cheng said the male to female ratio went from 2:1 to 3:2 over the last two months. Specifically, the first wave of iPad users was 66 percent male to 34 percent female; the second wave was 61 percent male to 39 percent female.

While more women are visiting Yahoo properties from the iPad, so are more men. This is a reflection of the big boost iPad adoption. When Yahoo first published statistics about how iPad users accessed its properties, Apple had sold 1 million iPads.

Feverish iPad Sales

Two months later, the iPad has continued its feverish sales pace, topping 3 million iPads sold in 80 days.

Barclays Captial analysts believe Apple will sell 20 million iPads in 2011 despite competitive threats from tablets based on Google’s Android operating system, HP’s Palm WebOS and other platforms.

The first wave of Yahoo IPad adopters accessed Yahoo’s sports and finance within the first nine days after Apple launched the product. Almost half of these users also owned and used Apple’s iPhone, suggesting strong ties between the iPhone and iPad user experience, which employ variations of the same operating system.

Cheng also found that more people are visiting Yahoo’s Groups, Shopping, and Travel, which increased 28 percent, 25 percent, and 22 percent, respectively over the first wave of iPad users. Early iPad users predominantly accessed Yahoo’s Flickr, Finance, News and Sports (and still do).

Cheng also looked at iPad users visiting Yahoo from outside the U.S. IPad became available in nine countries by 28 May.

She claimed Yahoo iPad users hailing from countries outside of the U.S. show similar demographics. The male skew is roughly the same, except in Japan where male users outstrip female users 4:1.

Threats To e-Reader

One trend that has remained a model of consistency for iPad use is the age demographic, Cheng said. The sweet age spot for iPad users is between ages 30 and 54, she said.

Meanwhile, results from Resolve Market Research concluded that iPads pose greater threats to e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and portable gaming devices, which would include Apple’s own iPod touch.

Some 49 percent of Resolve survey respondents said they would not purchase an e-reader after owning and iPad. Some 38 percent of respondents said that they did not plan to buy a portable gaming device after owning an iPad.

This sheds some light on the question of whether or not the iPad would cannibalise some of the current consumer devices on the market.