14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that notebook sales are still good enough to allow everyone a share of the pie, but that's not really the case if a certain report proves true, and it most likely will, soon enough.
And by report, we mean the results published by Digitimes after checking with several IT market research firms.
Right now, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba, ASUS, and Acer are doing more or less fine. HP and Lenovo are even fighting over the top spot.
There are significantly many more laptop makers in the world, however, and it is those companies that are taking the brunt of the PC market decline.
According to the report we linked to above, second-tier notebooks (notebooks offered by non-top-10 vendors) have fallen to a ratio of under 10% compared to global shipments.
Intel tried to help them avoid the crisis, and is still doing what it can. After all, more companies means more products that use its chips.
Still, first-tier vendors have shown great resilience and proactiveness in the setting of their price schemes.
In layman terms, top 10 vendors have been making better and cheaper laptops, and they've been advertising them like crazy as well.
That is why second-tier notebooks only account for 10% of total shipments now, despite the percentage having been of 30% in 2010.
Add to that the predicted decline in overall PC shipments of 10% in 2013 and you have even fewer notebook orders to share among everyone.
That HP and other first-tier companies are having trouble of their own, despite their adverts, is not encouraging at all. After all, if the holders of 90% of the market can't get enough customers, not much is left for the little guy.
It's obvious that some smaller notebooks brand vendors will go out of business or allow themselves to be acquired by the big ones before the year is out, or soon after that.