“There’s an interesting chart in a report to clients issued early Thursday morning by Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“What caught my eye, however, was what her proprietary research shows about the impact of the iPad and other tablets on the broader gadget market, starting with netbooks. As her chart shows, sales growth of these low-cost, low-powered computing devices peaked last summer at an astonishing 641% year-over-year growth rate,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “It fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April — collateral damage, according to Huberty, from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad.”
“Her timing seems a little off,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “Steve Jobs didn’t unveil the iPad until Jan. 27, yet the NPD data she cites is dated Jan. 10.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple “tablet” rumors were off the charts well before Jan. 27.
Elmer-DeWitt continues, “But in support of her theory, she offers a Morgan Stanley/Alphawise survey conducted in March that found that 44% of U.S. consumers who were planning to buy an iPad said that they were buying it instead of a netbook or notebook computer.”
Full article, which also shows that iPod touch might be next in line to be cannibalized, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nearly every netbook that’s replaced means one less Windows sale for Microsoft and one more OS X sale for Apple. Watch out for flying chairs!
• The tablet market has only succeeded as a niche market over the years and it was hoped Apple would dream up some new paradigm to change all that. From what I’ve seen and heard, this won’t be it. – John “Bloated Gasbag” Dvorak’s iPad assessment, MarketWatch, January 29, 2010
• You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream on that… It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’ – Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman, February 10, 2010
Bill Gates. Ever the visionary.
• The Apple iPad is not going to be the company’s next runaway best seller. – John “B. G.” Dvorak, MarketWatch, February 12, 2010
• The iPad has fewer capabilities than a netbook, in a similar size. Not a good start. – Lee Gomes, Forbes, March 05, 2010
• iPads will top the publicity charts this week when they launch, but netbooks will still top the sales charts, and far outsell iPads into the foreseeable future. The iPad will remain an expensive, niche device compared to all-purpose netbooks. – Preston Gralla, PCWorld, March 30, 2010
Gralla’s may be a record incubation time for a foolish quote. Congrats, Preston! Our Take in response to Gralla was: “Ford’s Model T will top the publicity charts this week when they roll off something Ford calls an ‘assembly line,’ but horse-drawn carriages will still top the sales charts, and far outsell automobiles into the foreseeable future. The Model T will remain an expensive, niche device compared to all-purpose horse-powered vehicles. – HorsecartWorld, September 23, 1908.”
• Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. – Paul Thurrott, SuperSite for Windows, April 05, 2010
Leave it to Paulie to immediately break the record for ineptitude.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
The inventories and orders on the net books were reported as being pulling down prior to the release of the iPad. They all knew what was about to hit and no one wanted to be holding old technology inventory.
Note: Net books were the growth segment of the PC Box makers. NOT ANY MORE!!!
I’m sick and tired of people moaning about how useful net books are. I bought one while my mbp was in the shop and it was the most miserable computing experience I’ve ever had!!!
Tablets sucked in the past because of windows slow and not tablet friendly ways. The ipad instant on ability and ease of use is what the every day person has been looking for, for a long time.
PC World is so desperate.
@vsp
Google dropped Chrome because Apple showed them the way, just like HP, Microsoft and RIM.
Prepare for the parade of slates with hardly anything substantially different from Apple’s iPad, except of course Microsoft’s with the stylus.
Stylin’!
I can definitely see the iPad cannibalizing the iPod touch. Though, I could see it causing a little resurgence of the iPod shuffle and iPod nano because people may still want a small device to take jogging or whatever and the iPad might be too big for that. Though, if I had all my druthers, I’d have an iPad and an iPhone and a 27″ iMac.
“flying chairs” – Bobby Knight reference??
I found myself reading this article on my iPad while sitting on the toilet. When I got to Bill Gates’ quote I thought: The last thing I need right now is a pen and a keyboard. Some visionary, eh? I love my iPad.
@ MichaelD
“I found myself reading this article on my iPad while sitting on the toilet.”
Ugh. Too much information friend.
@ btaylor
You should have taken your daughter to the Apple store.
iMaki: go kaki and disappear up your own hole.
Steve Jobs is a liberal . Now make like Flash and disappear.
Most columnists in the PC world are blinded by the light of Microsoft funding and feeding of they & their readers to the point that they can’t recognize when their oligarch is being blindsided by a tactic/technique that the oligarch itself even espoused years ago.
It is NOT about Apple, whiners!
It is about SATISFYING CUSTOMERS.
When any company truly satisfies customers very well in a new way, the result is really due to CUSTOMER CHOICE.
Instead, the whining PC writers choose to ignore customer choice and start talking about things other than what is OBVIOUS.
I have not been surprised at what the plebes write anymore, because, truth known, they have no vision and no creativity and no ability to connect with typical consumers. They have only a script and marching orders they give themselves (or occassionally $s from a large corporation).
Sickening.
I don’t think this chart shows anything that impressive. NO product, even the esteemed iPad, iPhone, or iWhatever could continue that type of “year-over-year” growth.
The chart shows highest growth over the months of July, August, and September. Anyone with retail experience would recognize this as “back-to-school.” The netbook presented itself as the perfect low cost alternative to full sized laptops. I would assume based on the chart, that last summer was when the netbook really became accepted by college students who did not purchase them as much in the previous year.
Following “back-to-school” we have a little thing called the holiday shopping season. In some aspects and some industries “back-to-school” can be a bigger portion of their sales year. Couple this with the assumption that there were probably higher netbook sales for the same period the previous year and you start to see a decline in the graph. November’s spike could probably be attributed to that most favorite of days for retailers; Black Friday, where I personally saw QUALITY netbooks in the sub $200 range.
After that, let’s face it January and February are dead months. Who wouldn’t expect further drop off of year-over-year growth.
The iPad furor really wasn’t as big as you would think outside of the Apple and techno geek crowd. However the annonoucement probably did have some impact on netbook sales initially both negative and positive as the keynote also showed what the device wasn’t going to be capable of. I know for myself I wanted the ipad as soon as it was announced, yet could not personally see the need for a netbook. It really stopped me from buying a Kindle and not a netbook, and my daughter will still be getting a netbook as mostly everything she uses it for requires (faux shock and horror) flash.
I really believe that the chart more accurately reflects the maturation and saturation of the netbook market and less of the iPad slaughtering the netbook. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Love me, Love me, I’m a Liberal…
Well there is still one thing that a netbook has that the ‘ipad’ doesn’t and that is a built in webcam. They are not very good, admittedly, but good enough to video skype. So here is hoping that the 2nd generation will have that very important (to me) feature.
“”flying chairs” – Bobby Knight reference??”
Eh, that would be King Ballmer of Chubby Funsterland
He regularly breaks chairs whenever a competitor frustrates the old creaky Microcomputer Software Mothership.
Not by sitting on them (i know, i couldn’t believe it either) but by throwing them across the room.
Ha! Apple fundamentalists are easy to enflame.
You’d have thought I said something like: “THERE IS NO GOD!
@Big Als MBP:
The iPad is too heavy? What kind of girly boy are you?”
Actually it’s….girly-MAN, to you.
@MDmac: “You should have taken your daughter to the Apple store”
She’s been there and loves it! My wife bought her the notebook because that’s what was affordable and adequate.
I have four kids–I can’t only afford the iPhone/AT&T;Thanks to:
MDmac , MikeK, WetFX, Arnold Ziffel
for honest, kool-Aid free responses to my comment.
“Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. – Paul Thurrott, SuperSite for Windows, April 05, 2010”
That was a stupid thing to say, however you look at it.
Someone who believed it was “a game changer” would, if it weren’t one, merely be mistaken.
It would be someone who said it was “a game changer”, while believing it wasn’t who would be “a tool”. That’s Paul’s usual role for Microsoft, of course.
@ob 1 spyker
I’m no statistician, but I would have to say the graph portrays data and we are left to divine some meaning or causation on our own. Your conclusion may well be correct. I believe 30 milion netbooks were sold in 2009, and they were probably expecting 45 million this year. If the trend depicted in this data continues, they’ll be lucky to sell 30 million. Ouch! They’ll be losing money on each sale.
@ onionhead
and who are you that is so wise in the ways of science?
Imaki: Don’t forget to flush
To be successful we need to stop with the either or viewpoint. Desktop OS work with certain devices and the iPhone OS works with others. Both will be OK.
@ btaylor again,
Nothing fundamental about 1.5 pounds being heavy. I doubt you’ve ever held an iPad let alone typed on one while standing up.
No one who has used a Mac would settle for a Netbook. Adequate? You mean her netbook surfs the net and runs MS Word very slowly. She can send e-mails and IM her friends. The A-V software hogs the CPU cycles and drives her nuts.
She must hate you and the wife.
@Indy Mac, here’s a little more background for you… From Monkey-Boy Ballmer’s Wiki entry:
In 2005, Mark Lucovsky alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became highly enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer allegedly said, “I’m going to fucking kill Google,” then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described characterizations of the incident as a “gross exaggeration of what actually took place.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer#Lucovsky.2FGoogle
back to the first line in the article…
“There’s an interesting chart in a report to clients issued early Thursday morning by <b>Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty.<b>”
HUBERTY!!! the analyst who has repeatedly been WAY off in her estimations of all things Apple for many many quarters.
The article pretty much has to be disregarded from the start.