If you thought netbooks were a fad, think again. Sales are booming, with the highest demand in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
You don’t have to be an analyst to know that the netbook market is booming. Netbooks arrived just in time for the global economic meltdown and offered the perfect solution of low price, adequate performance, and fantastic portability to woo consumers from more expensive notebooks to the tiny machines.
Market research firm DisplaySearch has revealed its data on
shipments for notebook and netbook computers for Q1 2009 around the world. According to the firm the netbook accounted for nearly 20% of the worldwide notebook market for the quarter.
The top shipper of netbooks was Acer with its
Aspire One line grabbing hold of 30.5% of the entire netbook market and shipping two times as many netbooks as the second place shipper Asus.
Netbook penetration rates were highest in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and Latin America with penetration lowest in China, Japan, and North America. A full 45% of netbooks shipped over the quarter went to EMEA.
That large portion of shipped units is helped by the much more common practice of subsidising netbook costs in exchange for mobile broadband contracts in Europe. Subsidising netbooks and notebooks is a rarity in other places including Australia and the US. (It does happen, but nowhere near as much as in Europe.)
Above: Acer Aspire One NetbookIn the notebook market, HP held onto the top shipper spot with 24.1% of the market shipping 7.3 million notebooks. The second place spot went to Acer, which took the position from Dell, which slipped into third place. Netbooks accounted for 31.6% of Acer shipments for the quarter while the other major PC makers had less than 10% netbooks in shipment totals.
DisplaySearch Director of Notebook Market Research John F. Jacobs said in a statement, "It is clear at the moment that mini-notes play a vital role in the total PC market. Without the additional volume provided by these products, shipment volumes for the notebook PC market would have been down 19% Y/Y, instead of only falling 3%. While there is no doubt that many buyers of mini-notes would have chosen larger notebook PCs if mini-notes were not available, it is also certain that many buyers might have chosen not to purchase a notebook PC at all."