iPad tornado hits portable PC sales
According to at least one industry analyst, portable PCs have been pushed into negative growth for the first time ever and a leading retailer says the causative factor is Cupertino’s “magical and revolutionary” tablet. No wonder Stan Shih calls Apple’s newest products “mutant viruses.”
According to Fortune, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty calls the phenomenon “tablet cannibalization” and the biggest belly at this PC portable buffet is the iPad.
“We expect tablets to continue to pressure PCs as more vendors launch products and Apple expands its iPad distribution,” writes Huberty.
Thereupon, if you can feel your PC apologist blood start to boil, consider the words of Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn, whose company is rolling out the iPad at all of 1,095 stores nationwide (versus 600-plus earlier this year). He told the Wall Street Journal that internal estimates showed that the iPad had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50 percent.
Mutant viruses, indeed!
So, just as Dell, Samsung and the rest of the great unwashed mass of wannabe tablet makers gear up to start shipping product, Apple’s broadening its iPad retail footprint, adding hundreds of new outlets with the help of Best Buy and also Target, which is expected to roll the device on Sunday, October 3.
The last great growth engines of the OEM PC business, the notebook and its midget netbook cousin, have been laid low, negative growth low, by the iPad. Does anyone remember the chorus of fools predicting Apple’s demise because it didn’t offer a netbook? Shnork!
No wonder Acer’s eminence grise, Stan Shih, has taken to calling the iPad and iPhone “mutant viruses”.
Then again, maybe portable PCs are the disease and the iPad’s the cure…
What’s your take?
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