Angus Kidman08 January 2009, 1:18 PM
The convenors of the giant Consumer Electronics expo in Las Vegas say 2009 is -- without doubt -- the year of the netbook.
With 10 million units sold in 2008 and almost double that number expected this year, netbooks look like one of the few bright spots for consumer tech in 2009.
In the list of the fastest-growing technologies for 2008 based on wholesale US sales released by the Consumer Electronics Association ahead of this week's CES in Las Vegas, netbooks don't actually figure. That's because they weren't tracked as a separate category, as by CEA's rough reckoning, they probably accounted for less than 1% of the worldwide laptop market and had made very little impact stateside.
In 2009, no-one's making the same mistake. Netbooks have definitely arrived, with sales of 10 million ultra-portable devices around the world in 2008. For 2009, CEA estimates that number will jump to 18 million, accounting for around 11% of the total notebook market. That figure is expected to continue to grow, rising to 14% in 2012. In 2009, US sales are expected to grow by 80%, making them the fourth fastest-growing retail category (after OLED displays, e-readers and flash camcorders).
Surprisingly, netbook growth doesn't necessarily mean a massive use in the increase of solid-state storage. Storage market researcher Tom Coughlin predicts that solid-state drives will only be used in 2.5% of mobile PCs by 2013, which means most of those netbooks will still rely on conventional hard drive technology.
Higher-spec netbooks are even pumping life into the tablet PC market, which has repeatedly failed to translate hype into actual sales. "We never really saw tablets take off, but netbooks are moving into that space," said CEA economist Shaun DuBravac. "The netbook has become very much an identifiable segment."
There's a downside to that, of course: netbooks sell for less and make it hard for manufacturers to turn a dollar. "Lower priced netbooks will pull the average price of PCs down, resulting in lower overall revenue growth," said Tim Herbert, senior director for CEA Market Research.
Conventional laptop makers probably don't need to panic, since standard machines continue to comprise the lion's share of the notebook market, and have totally outstripped desktop sales. In 2009, the CEA is projecting that 63% of PC sales will be portable, with around 147 million mobile computing devices of some description shipping around the globe.