If you have looked around the table at your last conference room meeting, you have noticed that netbooks already have grabbed significant user share. A new study by NPD Group confirms the traction. In the second quarter of 2009, the netbook segment grew 40 percent sequentially, while notebook sales grew 22 percent sequentially.
In some markets, such as China and Latin America, netbook sales already are greater than notebook penetration.
Still, the installed base of netbooks is about 22 percent of the portable computer market. Asus, the pioneer in mini-note PCs, has been steadily losing share because tier one brands like Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba have become increasingly aggressive in the segment, NPD Group says.
In many regions, telecom providers have been offering subsidized mini-notes for several quarters, which helped propel growth. In Western European countries, a number of telecoms are subsidizing 100 percent of the price of the mini-notebook devices when the customer signs a two-year data plan contract.
Mini-notebooks have been a significant contributor to the growth in the portable PC market as their very attractive price points make owning a secondary computer viable for many consumers.
Suppliers generally seem to be differentiating notebooks from netbooks by screen size. At about 12 inch screen sizes, netbooks start to overlap with notebooks. Some suppliers likely want to increase average selling prices for netbooks, but price is probably the reason so many netbooks have been sold.
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