Notebook Sales See Negative Growth Following iPad Launch

Notebook sales saw negative growth in August for the first time ever following the release of the iPad, according to FORTUNE.

Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty issued a report to clients graphing decline of the notebook sales growth over the past year. She says, "tablet cannibalization" is at least partially responsible and cites the following reasons:


● NPD data shows that after six months of decelerating growth, U.S. retail notebook unit growth fell 4% year over year in August, marking the first time those numbers had actually gone negative.
● First week of September shows that units fell 4% year over year again.
● BestBuy CEO Brian Dunn's remarked that "internal estimates showed that the iPad had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50 percent."

Take a look at the chart below to see the decline.