14 DAY TRIAL // According to a recent report from research firm DisplayBank, the total number of netbook shipments recorded in 2008 reached an impressive 14.6 million units. Based on this number, the forecast for the ongoing years is of 26.3 million units, with the netbook segment expected to take up to 17.2 percent of the overall NotePC market.
As expected, the leading netbook vendors were Acer and ASUS, with the former accounting for 37.3 percent, the latter closely following at 33.2 percent market share. Third in line was HP, though with a market share of 7.5%, a significant difference between the second spot and the third spot in the top 5 shipment results. MSI and Intel took the fourth and fifth place, with a market share of 4.8% and 2.2%, respectively.
The report also makes a forecast regarding the market situation for year 2009, with Acer expected to increase its market share to 42.9%, almost half to the entire netbook market. According to DisplayBank, ASUS is expected to account for just 24.5% of the market, with estimated shipments of approximately 6,5 million units. The numbers represent 11% of the total laptop sales, with an estimated increase to 18.9 % by 2012.
DisplayBank also offers a definition of a netbook, to allow users to better understand the results presented in the report. According to them, netbooks have “similar functions as NotePC, support networking and have retail price lower than US$650. Especially, products are narrowed with screen size of 7 – 10.2 inch and with Linux or Microsoft Windows operating system equipped.”
The report provides an overall perspective on the impressive growth of netbook systems in the past year. Providing users with the basics in portable computing technology, netbooks have managed to help some companies better deal with the effects of the low global economy. These devices will continue to be successful, according to expectations, with more users likely to adopt them as a second PC solution.