Are netbooks going the way of the dodo? With reports out that netbook sales growth slowed significantly in Q1 and prognostications recently from more than one analyst firm that Apple iPad (and the coming tide of slate competitors) will cannibalize netbook sales in coming years, channel partners need to take stock. After steep growth in the netbook market for the last two years, many within the channel have grown to depend on the easy netbook sell, even if it has eaten up some of the demand for higher-priced laptops within customer environments. Financial analysts such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs reported recently that they're betting on Apple to vacuum up sales that would once have gone to a netbook with its iPad device. And that's just one stage of the competition. With heavy hitters such as Cisco, Dell and HP expected to soon release slate devices to compete with iPad, and a growing contingent of manufacturers letting loose new ARM-based smartbook devices that meld the features of smartphones with netbooks, the traditional netbook is bound to look less attractive to some customers. Here’s a look at the numbers.
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Gartner reports that netbook sales slowed down to 20 percent growth last quarter, compared to 70 percent consecutive growth over the previous two years.
Goldman Sachs Research released a note recently that said it expects the Apple iPad to greatly cannibalize the netbook and even the notebook market over the next several years.
Goldman interviewed CTOs at 90 hedge funds and found that 70 percent expect to replace at least a few mobile PCs with the iPad in the coming two years.
Similarly, a note out from Barclays Capital recently also predicts that tablet devices are going to take a bite out of the netbook and lower end of the notebook market in 2011.
Barclays projects that 15 million tablets such as the iPad will move this year and that the number will jump to 28 million in 2011, most of the initial rise coming at the expense of netbooks.
According to financial analysts with the firm Trefis, Apple may sell 45 percent of its iPads to enterprises from now through 2016.
Analysts with Rethink Technology Research believe that three-quarters of tablet and smartbook sales will come at the expense of other devices such as netbooks and laptops through 2014.
Rethink expects that 16 percent of the potential netbook market will have been lost to smartbooks by 2013.
This is going to continue the mobile device evolution that the netbook helped move along; according to Rethink analysts, only about one-fifth of netbook sales have been additional purchase. The rest have come at the expense of new notebook purchases or upgrades.
Perhaps the channel shouldn't count netbooks out just yet, though. Intel reported that during Q2 sales of its netbook-friendly Atom processor helped buoy the company's revenue well above the market's expectations.
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