Big Surprise: The iPad Is Killing The Netbook Craze

Big Surprise: The iPad Is Killing The Netbook Craze

I’m filing this under “not very surprising” — It appears the netbook fad has already peaked, thanks to analytics from Fortune.com. To be precise, it was last summer, when the popular, affordable tiny notebooks had a 641% year-over-year growth rate. But ever since Apple announced its tablet in January, those numbers have been dramatically decreasing. Personally, I think that netbooks will still continue to sell — they do offer things that the iPad doesn’t. But pricing the iPad to start at $500 was a genius move by Apple. It’ll be interesting to see how those netbook sales look a year from now.