Netbook Sales Sag as the iPad Arrives - BusinessWe

Netbook Income Sag since the iPad Arrives The product sales growth from the mini-laptops has fallen sharply as purchasers eye more capable moveable personal computers
By
Cliff Edwards

Apple's (AAPL) iPad is helping cool the personal computer industry's netbook fever. Apple Chief Executive Steve Employment has created no secret of his disdain for that common, cheap mini-notebooks. "Netbooks aren't better than anything. They're just cheap laptops," Careers said at the Jan. 27 launch of the iPad tablet pc in San Francisco.

PC makers are starting to worry that consumers agree. The product sales progress of netbooks, priced from $200 to $500 and resembling shrunk-down laptops, slowed markedly in the first quarter, according to market researcher IDC.

Netbook shipments to retailers from January through March are expected to grow 33.6% compared with a year ago,Office Professional 2010 Sale, to 4.8 million units,Office Product Key, IDC says. That's significantly slower expansion than in the first quarter of 2009, when netbook sales leapt 872%, to 3.6 million units. "Everyone tried to make these mini-notebooks out to be a different category, or different type of device," says IDC analyst Richard Shim. "In fact, people think of them as just another type of PC."

Falling product sales aren't the only problem dogging netbooks. There's evidence that demand for netbook components is declining. The Web site DigiTimes reported on Mar. 30 that makers of the liquid-crystal-display panels used in netbooks are cutting production because of declining orders. PC makers including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Acer declined to comment on whether inventories of unsold netbooks are on the rise.
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Susie Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Intel, which makes the Atom chip used in most netbooks, declined to say whether PC makers are ordering fewer with the chips. "Things change quarter to quarter, but in the end we're looking at hundreds of millions of netbooks that will be sold over time," she says.

Some PC makers are starting to look past the category and divine what will next capture consumers' attention in the portable personal computer market. Michael Abary, senior vice-president of Sony's (SNE) Information Products Technology Div., which makes Vaio-branded desktops,Win 7, laptops,Best windows7 ultimate patches downloads., and netbooks, says the mini-laptops are "losing [their] novelty. Everyone is trying to figure out what's next,Office Standard Product Key, now that we realize [sales are] not going to continue to grow at an astronomical rate."

Sales of netbooks, which became well-liked among American consumers in 2008, exploded as recession-battered shoppers opted for that cheap but less able laptops. When many people got them home, they were disappointed by flimsy keyboards,Win 7 Enterprise Key, unfamiliar operating systems, and a lack of programs that could be run on the machines.