Analyst: iPad Could Boost Apple Against Netbooks

Ed Sutherland ()

Analyst: iPad Could Boost Apple Against Netbooks

@AP

How does Apple compete with the inexpensive netbooks without a netbook? One analyst believes the answer is to call it an iPad. The Cupertino, Calif. company’s tablet device could take 4 percent of netbook sales this year and 7 percent in 2011, Deutsche Bank said.

The iPad, unveiled last week, will “compete very well” against netbooks, particularly where “surfing, reading, game playing and emailing dominate the usage model,” analyst Chris Whitmore said.

He believes the iPad could expand Apple’s addressable market by at least 50 million units, selling 2 million of the tablets this year and 4 million in 2011. Additionally, the device could push Apple’s existing iPhone OS, App Store and developer base “into another very large segment of the market.”

The Deutsche Bank analyst downplayed the importance of the iPad lacking features such as multi-tasking, video camera and USB port. “For most non-technical consumers, these features are not critical” and could be answered through after-market products. Instead, the iPad will attract consumers for its speed, display, apps and iTunes.

In January, a display supplier, said the iPad could quickly dominate the current PC-based tablet market. The iPad could “achieve annual sales of 10 million units, which is a significant estimate considering the current tablet PC market is only about 3 million a year,” said Paul Peng, executive vice-president of AU Optronics’ global business unit. AUO makes LCD displays.

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[Via Barron's]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • firesign3000

    The camera will be a non-issue. There will be 3rd party (or even an Apple) cameras the will plug into the port. I also wouldn’t be surprised if you could use a USB cam via the USB port adapter. I also think that IPhone OS 4 will address multitasking. And the analyst is right, it’s mostly the geeks who whine on tech blogs that worry about this stuff. Your average user won’t care.

  • Charli

    ditto on the article and fire’s comments. this is someone that has really thought before speaking and gives a logical argument. even to the point of noting that much of the whining about ‘missing’ features is by the digigeeks who are not the primary market for this device.

    as for the style of a cam, I will not be surprised if in another week or so we get word that someone is logitech or blue is adapting their cams to a small clip on dock connecting unit not much better than a bluetooth earpiece that will take advantage of the ‘upside down’ trick of the ipad. then all we’d need is chatting software etc.

  • rauy

    While it is undoubtedly true that the iPad is revolutionary, changing the way we define the personal computing experience, I’m pretty much tired of it being pitted against netbooks. The iPad is the iPad; netbooks are netbooks.

    Both devices do start with the same basic concept of connectivity and mobility but going forward, the devices go their separate fork in the road.

    Netbooks offer you a PC in a small package (and limited capabilities), the iPad proposes not a PC, not even a Mac in my own humble opinion, but an entirely new concept of computing – or maybe it isn’t even supposed to be called “computing” anymore – it can define where technology and humans go.

  • porkchop1234

    !!!!!????????
    …………
    ………………..
    The articles and comments on here sometimes really leave me speechless.
    Everyone GET THIS IN YOUR HEADS. The ipad is a multimedia device NOT, I repeat NOT, a netbook. LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE TRUTH. Will it ever become a netbook in the future? Only time will tell. It could take a year ,2 years ,5 years ,20 years or never. I wish people would just stick to the facts and stop spouting off comments saying this will happen and that will happen soon when they DON’T KNOW.

    Haven’t any of you learned your lesson after all the tablet hype fell short of expectations?