Netbook sales slump due to iPad

In part due to the iPad and other tablet computers, netbook sales continue to drop as users purchase other mobile devices.

Starting in January, when the iPad was released, netbook growth started dropping, down to 68% year-on-year growth in January after an all-time high of 641% year-on-year growth in July of last year.

Growth kept dropping this year, and was down to a lowly five percent year-on-year growth rate in April.

The same Fortune report also found that 44% of iPad buyers were purchasing the device instead of a netbook or notebook.

And netbooks aren’t the only devices in danger of being made obsolete due to the iPad. Forty-one percent of iPad buyers said they were purchasing the device in place of an iPod Touch and 28% of buyers said the purchase meant they would forego buying an eReader. Handheld videogames could also suffer losses, as 17% of buyers said that they purchased the iPad in place of a handheld videogame system.