Best Buy CEO Claims iPad Cannibalizing Notebook Sales By 'As Much As 50%'

[wirelessmacuser]

I can see this trend continuing. The typical mainstream consumer is a different buyer than enthusiasts and those with lots of computing experience. In retail, especially today's economy it tends to be price and "looks" that sell. Factor in the general perception of Apple as a "cool brand" and consumers will buy iPads without much thought as to their true needs.

 

[Dr McKay]

It'll be a cold day in hell before iPads or tablets replace Notebooks, Netbooks yes. But not Notebooks.

 

[Jaro65]

It'll be a cold day in hell before iPads or tablets replace Notebooks, Netbooks yes. But not Notebooks.

Coming our way....

 

[yuenadan]

For me the situation was the same, I had an Acer Aspire One netbook but once I got my iPad, I saw no need for it anymore and sold it.

I use the iPad WAY more than I ever used the netbook, and find the iPad useful in more situations (try to type something on a netbook while you're standing on the subway!)

And as far as notebooks go, when I bought my new computer recently, instead of buying another MacBook or MacBook Pro, I bought an iMac. I just feel that the iPad can do everything I'd need to do when on the go.

So I guess you could say I'd make up part of this statistic (if I shopped at Best Buy, I bought my iMac at Studio A here in Taipei)

Well, I can tell you that for me, I sold my netbook (an Asus EEE PC 1000HE, pretty nice as far as netbooks went) when I bought my iPad. For my needs, the iPad does everything I was doing with the netbook, which was essentially: email, Facebook, YouTube.

Could the netbook have done more things than the iPad? Of course: run arbitrary Windows apps, install other OS' like Linux or even OS X, use USB ports, card readers, webcams, play games, all that stuff. But in practice, I didn't need all that stuff, and given the trade-off between a machine that can do all those things, or a machine that can only do a subset of those things, but damn, is it ever sexy and fun... the choice was obvious.

Sounds like there are plenty of other people who were in the same boat.

 

[Ubuntu]

Why? The funtion of a netbook is just to read email an look at web pages. iPads can do that.

I seriously doubt if many if those Cannibalised notebooks are Apple notebooks. Apple does not sell $400 notebook.

Notice that this 50% Cannibalised number is a "goodThing" even for best Buy. Why else are they planning to extend the iPad to all of their stores? I think Best Buy makes more money selling an iPad then a low-end netbook.

Hmm, I use my netbook for more than just emails and web-surfing, I use it (comfortably) for word-processing, programming amongst other things. Lets not forget that even though the iPad is a good product, its just not the same as a netbook. I've read comments saying they both tackle the mobile computing genre - they do, but it shows how big that genre really is. The iPad feels closer to my iPhone than my netbook.

 

[iFisherman]

I don't believe it, unless, the people are that stupid to believe that an iPad can serve them as good as a notebook can, which (I personally believe that) is not true.
Ok, if a big iPod (call it iPad) can "cannibalize" the NOTEbook market, then my next notebook/laptop will be an(other) iPod.. Shuffle!

After the update to this information, I really think some people owe 2992 an apology for all the grief they gave him about his disbelief.