Best Buy CEO: iPad cannibalizing laptop PC sales

Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn has said that the iPad is eating into sales of traditional laptop PCs. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Dunn said that internal estimates showed the iPad had cannibalized sales of laptop PCs by as much as 50%. “It’s a very different environment now,” said Stephen Baker, chief electronics analyst for the NPD Group. “The real cool stuff now will be the tablets, e-readers and probably the higher-end digital cameras.” A separate analyst said the iPad may also be contributing to declining TV sales, which fell by “low-double digit[s]” year-over-year, according to Dunn. “It has become largely a replacement market,” said Riddhi Patel of iSuppli. “New features are not driving sales in a significant way. People are saying, ‘I could buy a television or something totally new like an iPad that I don’t already own.’” Best Buy announced earlier this week that it would expand sales of the iPad to include all 1,093 stores by September 26.