iPad has 91% consumer satisfaction, demand greater than pre-launch

A pair of new surveys from ChangeWave show that demand for the iPad has grown since the device hit the market in early April, while 91 percent of those who already bought one are satisfied with their purchase.

The results of the two surveys conducted in May were revealed Thursday by ChangeWave. One polled 3,174 consumers to measure future demand for the iPad, while a second survey of 153 new iPad owners set out to discover their impressions of the device.

In the larger study of general consumers, 7 percent of respondents said they are "very likely" to buy an iPad, while another 13 percent said they are "somewhat likely." That's the highest level of consumer interest ChangeWave has seen in the iPad to date.

In February, a previous survey from the same company found that 4 percent of respondents were "very likely" to buy, and 9 percent said they were "somewhat likely." While those numbers were lower than the current totals, they were also higher than the pre-release demand for the iPhone based on a 2007 survey.

Among those polled in ChangeWave's May survey, 245 identified themselves as currently owning an e-reader. Among those, 62 percent currently have an Amazon Kindle, versus 16 percent for the iPad — just weeks after the hardware's release.

A major change from the February survey came in the form of content read on e-readers. The introduction of the iPad resulted in spikes of newspaper, magazine and blog reading on portable e-readers. Both online newspaper and magazine reading were up 7 percent, while blogs increased 1 percent.

Half of those who own an iPad said they read newspapers on their device, compared to just 14 percent of all other e-reader owners. And 38 percent of iPad owners read magazines, compared to 11 percent of other e-reader owners.

"In short," the ChangeWave study said, "more than 3 times as many iPad e-Reader owners say they read Newspapers and Magazines as do all other e-Reader owners."

ChangeWave's survey of 153 new iPad owners found that 74 percent said they are "very satisfied" with their purchase, and another 17 percent are "somewhat satisfied." Just 2 percent said they were unsatisfied.

"The iPad ratings are nearly identical to the highest rated Smart Phone among consumers — the Apple iPhone," the report said. "But we note that Apple has now reached these nosebleed levels with a brand new product."