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The iPad has been an undoubted success, shifting a million plus units per month, and spawning a whole heap of imitation tablets.
And those big numbers have previously been thought to have cut into notebook sales. Last month, the CEO of Best Buy said that sales of laptops had halved since Apple’s slate was launched in April, according to internal estimates.
However, with its latest research, Analyst firm NPD is now claiming that the iPad isn’t cannibalising the notebook PC market after all. It questioned 500 iPad owners and found that only 13% of them purchased an iPad instead of a notebook PC.
Almost double that, 24%, bought their iPad instead of a planned e-reader purchase (and looking at the furious Kindle price cutting that has gone on, we can believe that).
Stephen Baker, VP of Industry Analysis at NPD, commented: “Early adopters, like iPad owners, follow a traditional pattern of consumer behavior; they purchase products because they want them, not because they need them.”
“However, as Apple increases iPad distribution and consumer interest peaks, the profile of an iPad owner is much more likely to mirror the overall tech population. When that does happen other tech products with similar usage profiles as the iPad, such as notebooks, netbooks, and e-readers will come under increased pressure from the iPad.”
Until then, Mr Baker reckons that the tablets Apple flogs are likely to be additional gadgets purchased in the home, not replacements of planned purchases such as a portable computer.
Even so, Best Buy’s numbers are a big drop, and Asus recently revealed its netbook sales had slowed in the second quarter compared to the first, and that it expected this decline to continue into Q3. This would seem to indicate something is up beyond the current recession blues.
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