Slashdot Mirror
iPad Is Destroying Netbook Sales
Hugh Pickens writes "Fortune magazine reports that sales growth of low-cost, low-powered netbooks peaked last summer at an astonishing 641% year-over-year growth rate but netbook sales fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April — collateral damage, according to Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad. In support of Huberty's theory, she offers a Morgan Stanley/Alphawise survey conducted in March which found that 44% of US consumers who were planning to buy an iPad said they were buying it instead of a netbook or notebook computer. In related news, Apple announced that it sold its one millionth iPad last week, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. 'One million iPads in 28 days — that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,' says Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. 'Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.'"
Not only is it incredibly biased, but it offers nothing in the way of actual evidence that would persuade someone who'd advanced past third grade.
Think about it for a second: Only 44% of the people who bought iPads who were surveyed said that they did so instead of buying a netbook. How many people bought iPads, as compared to those who bought netbooks?
The other thing that's astonishing to me is that someone who writes a market research report could be so piss-poor at reading a graph. Sales of netbooks actually went down most in October/November 2009, well before the January announcement of the iPad. I'm kind of astonished that the author of the Fortune article could be that stupid.