The belief that the iPad is eating the netbook’s lunch isn’t new. However, we can now mark the calendar: 2012. That’s according to one analysis firm which also dropped this bombshell: tablet devices will soon comprise nearly 25 percent of all PC sales.
The report released Thursday by Forrester Research shows tablet growth increasing over the next five years, from the current 6 percent to 23 percent by 2015. Meanwhile, the market for netbooks – which took off because of their low cost – is gradually shrinking. Currently 44 percent of PC sales, that figure drops to 17 percent by 2015, according to Forrester.
Other signs also point in the same direction. In May, a Retrovo poll found 30 percent of netbook shoppers instead bought an iPad, when it was introduced in January. Another 40 percent purchased a netbook, but held off until the iPad was unveiled. Another sign of a rocky future for netbooks: sales which once hit 611 percent growth in July 2009, slid to single-digits when the iPad was unveiled in April, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty.
[via 9to5Mac]