Netbooks Make Up 10% of European PC Market

by Jordan Yerman | October 17, 2008 at 08:55 am

557 views | 2 Recommendations | 6 comments

Apple rules the headlines, but PC dominates in terms of sheer numbers sold. Within those numbers, netbooks (underpowered and underpriced) have chewed off a huge chunk of overall sales.

For a class of laptop that didn't exist last year, netbooks have a rosy future indeed, especially with consumer confidence so low: if you must upgrade from your Windows 95 machine and, like many users, you mainly use your computer for online stuff, then a netbook would seem an obvious choice, and market stats are bearing that out.

We can say that European netbook shipments went from zero in Q3 2007 to over 2m in Q3 2008, a figure that's just under ten per cent of the 27.9m PCs shipped into Europe in Q3 this year.

IDC forecast SCC shipments will rocket almost 100 per cent to just shy of 4m units during the current quarter. That'll be helped by the arrival of new players like Apricot, LG, Samsung, Toshiba and Fujitsu Siemens, all of who are releasing netbooks this month or early next.

That will put pressure on Asus and Acer, the two strongest netbook makers in Q3, the latter having grabbed a good chunk of the business following the release of its cheap Aspire One and what IDC called an "explosive entry" into the market segment. Together, these two took 80 per cent of the European netbook market in Q3, IDC said.

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ma10.wong

at 11:43 on October 17th, 2008

This is my second netbook (Advent 4213 aka ECS G10IL) that I have bought over the last year. My first one was the pioneer of the netbook market, the Asus eeePC 701. I, like many others, bought a netbook for its great portability, internet on the go and sheer value for money. Also, with mobile broadband becoming ever prevalent, with its operators subsidising netbooks like they do with traditional mobile phones and often giving them to you free as part of a monthy contract. The days of lugging a large, bulky and expensive laptop everywhere was too good not to give up!

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cablefreak

at 12:11 on October 17th, 2008

It's been a good while now with my Acer Aspire One A150 in the camera backpacker, using it extensively each and every day in my widely varying business assignments.

I must say that the initial thrill hasn't left me the slightest bit. I'm running Adobe Bridge CS3 and Photoshop CS3 on it, evaluating my photo work on-site. It handles the 12MP RAW-images stunningly well for a netbook that size.

I find it very convenient to tag pictures on it, especially when working with many different places and objects during the day, it really saves a lot of headache.

Pricing is about the same as one of these Epson image backup/viewer units plus you get to surf at broadband speeds and use it like an ultra-portable desktop extension at work!

cablefreak has contributed a photo to this story.

SOLARLIFE

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 12:56 on October 17th, 2008

jordan, I like this story. Netbooks, affordable computers in a difficult economy for sure a success. This is good news for Africa too. Some of the netbooks are working on 9 volt DC and can recharge over a solar 12 V car battery. This means no destruction by the african 50 to 60 Hz and 160 to 260 Volt AC disaster. Almost every "buffered" netbook with linux will work for minimum 5 years. Good News thanks

A.J. Axline

at 22:48 on October 17th, 2008

For me, the netbook fills a role as a "secondary laptop", something that serves as an email and cloud computing device both at home and at places with public WiFi. It's not for writing a novel on, although you could do so if you wanted to. Instead, it's an inexpensive Internet appliance that is friendlier to use than a smartphone or Pocket PC, but is easier to carry around than a full-size laptop.

My favorite aspect of the Dell Mini 9 is the fact that it is entirely solid-state and noiseless during operation. Even the cooling is passive/radiant, so no case fans to bother me while I'm checking mail or just web surfing.

A.J. Axline has contributed a photo to this story.

rmurdey

at 23:16 on October 17th, 2008

I'm not surprised these little things are selling like hot cakes. The Acer Aspire One, in particular, seems to have found the right balance of size, price, and usability.

rmurdey has contributed a photo to this story.