Friday took place the official launch of the iPad 2 tablet in Romania, a release that did not generate as much interest as some would have expected. Those from finance newspaper they talked to the directors Emag and iStyle who claim to have sold 270 iPad 2 tablets on the day of launch, a good part of them through online stores. Friday at 18:00 at one of the centers iStyle from Bucharest, only one customer was waiting for the official launch of the tablet in Romania, and here I think the interest of Romanians for a tablet that has been available in Romania for several months is best described.
From Friday to Sunday, the number of iPad 2 tablets sold exceeded 170, said Dora Popeneciu, general manager of iStyle Romania, one of the largest Apple resellers on the local market, for ZF. "Out of the 170 units, we sold 40 through the online store," said Popeneciu. The company has currently imported 1.000 iPad 2s.
At eMag, the largest local IT&C retailer, over 100 iPad 2s were sold in a few tens of minutes, Radu Apostolescu, vice-president of eMag, told ZF. "We sold out over 100 pieces in less than an hour," said Apostolescu, without giving any other details. "The stock is very limited at the moment, we hope it will be resolved quickly next week", he added.
iStyle says that it imported 1000 iPad 2 tablets and sold only 17% of them, a sign that they expected a fairly high demand, but they found that the world is not really that interested in a tablet that many have already. eMag says the tablet stock is limited, iStyle only sells 170 out of 1.000 and I guess the Media Galaxy/Altex/Idea Store or Re-store didn't have great sales. If iPad 2 would have been sold through operators at a subsidized price, then the demand would certainly have been much higher, but under these conditions, those 1000 units will probably be sold quite hard.
In general, the launch of Apple products generates a lot of interest, and last month the launches in Russia and Ukraine gathered dozens of people at the stores of Apple product resellers. In Romania, the current economic situation and the preferences of the Romanians favor the sale of iPhone terminals and we know very well that both Orange and Vodafone and Cosmote had queues last year when the iPhone 4 was launched. Is the launch of the iPad 2 in Romania a failure? Not far, the prices have dropped, several hundred people are now happier and we are looking with interest towards Christmas when the iPhone 5 will arrive in Romania, 3 months after the official launch.
