Market tracker DisplaySearch predicts the iPad to have 30% share of the combined netbook/slate market by mid-year, says this could be “the beginning of the end” for the netbook.
Steve Jobs had the
netbook in his crosshairs when he unveilled the iPad and it seems his aim was true – at least based on early reports and short-range forecasts from US analyst firm DisplaySearch.
In its
latest assessment of the combined netbook and slate market the company says “it appears that the momentum is shifting from mini-note PCs to slates.”
In the first quarter of 2010 Apple shipped almost 700,000 iPads, which DisplaySearch said accounted for 6.5% of all sales in the netbook/slate category.
“In the first two months of Q2’10, the company sold more than two million iPads”, the company notes, with the expectation that by the end of this month the iPad will represent around 30% of the estimated 9.7 million netbooks and slates sold worldwide.
This number will however be slightly down on the Q1 total of 10.25 million devices and the Q4-09 record of 10.7 million units.
The iPad and a new wave of competing slates will further cruel the netbook’s appeal, DisplaySearch predicts. “In the second half of the year, as additional slates are launched, the clamshell-style (netbook) could continue to lose share.”
The prognosis? “The last quarter of 2007 heralded the birth of the mini-note PC. Q1’10 signaled the birth of the slate PC, and possibly by extension, the beginning of the end of the mini-note.”
This is assuming that the iPad’s success continues along the rocket-style trajectory of its first first few months, and that the subsequent crop of slates share some measure of the iPad’s fortunes.
On the other hand, if the tablet tsunami breaks too soon and becomes just a lightly lapping wave, netbooks could survive and continue to thrive.
Time to cast your own predictions, APCmag fans: does the future belong to netbooks or slates, or some mix of both?