Cook on the risks of iPad mini: Apple has "learned not to worry about canibalization of our own product"

The Apple iPad mini is now official, but just days before many argued that it wouldn’t make sense for Apple to announce a smaller iPad. Why? Simple, because it cannibalize its 9.7-inch iPad that is already selling pretty well.

And that’s definitely a possibility. But one thing that Apple has learned is to actually not be afraid to do this.

"We have learned over the years not to worry about cannibalization of our own product," chief executive Tim Cook said. "It's much better for us to do that than for somebody else to do it. 
A brilliant example of this is the iPhone, that would later on cannibalize much of iPod sales, but the company still went for it and now it is the main profit generator for Apple.

"And the far, far bigger opportunity here are the 80-90 million PCs that are being sold per quarter. There's still over 300 million PCs being bought per year. And I think a great number of those people would be much better off buying an iPad or a Mac. And so I think that's a much bigger opportunity for Apple. And so instead of being focused on cannibalizing ourselves, I look at it much more that it's an enormous incremental opportunity for us," Cook further explained.

Looking back at the history of Apple, it is really all about focusing on the right products that would eat older form factors. The MacBook ate Mac sales to some extent, and the iPad might have eaten into MacBook sales, but still those products came out to be a success. Whether it will work this time with the 7.9-inch iPad mini, we’re yet to see.

source: Apple