Notebook Market Growth, Reason for Mainboard Orders Declining

The portable computer system market has grown impressively over the last few years and this year, notebooks, along with netbooks, have managed to outsell desktop computer systems for the first time in history. This has been good for the laptop makers who have seen positive Q3 financial results. However, there's certainly a bad side to this market change, as both desktop PC makers and motherboard manufacturers are now recording lower product demand than expected. Among these industry players, motherboard makers are probably the most affected.  

Intel, the world's largest maker of microprocessors, is reported to have shipped more mobile CPUs than desktop processing units in the third quarter of 2008. What is even more concerning is that, according to forward-looking estimations, the gap between the two market segments is to expand. As a matter of fact, according to some assessments, in 2009, the growth in the CPU unit shipments may just be around 2%, a figure that could seriously impact the desktop PC mainboard shipments, in light of the mobile chips outselling desktop processors.  

With such grim market prospects, mainboard makers are left with no other solution than to diversify their product offering and look for other market opportunities. As a matter of fact, almost all major motherboard manufacturers have already released their own netbook versions, coming to compete in a market that appears to continue its growth, despite the low global economy. Taiwanese companies, ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte, have already unveiled their low-power, low-cost portable computer systems that could provide them with an alternative source of profit.  

From the three major players mentioned above, ASUS is expected to ship the most Eee PC units, both this year and in 2009. The company is pretty much responsible for having set the grounds on the netbook market, which has been constantly developing. Since their first netbook, the 7-inch Eee PC released last year, the netbook market has grown impressively and ASUS now has a strong competition, especially from Acer.