Netbook demand dropped 26% in Q1
But decline matched industry average
Demand for netbooks was indeed down in Q1 - as yesterday's Atom processor shipment figures suggested - but by the industry average, figures form market watcher DisplaySearch show.
According to the researcher, 5.9m netbooks were shipped worldwide in Q1, down 26 per cent from the 8m shipped in Q4 2008. In Q1, netbooks accounted for around a fifth of the total sales of portable PCs, some 30.3m units in all, including regular laptops.
Notebooks shipments were down 25 per cent sequentially.
Acer dominated the netbook market in Q1, shipping 1.8m machines, DisplaySearch said. The netbook pioneer, Asus, came second, shipping 900,000 mini laptops, followed by HP (700,000), Dell (400,000), Toshiba and Lenovo (both shipping 200,000). The 'others' category - including the likes of Samsung, MSI and Fujitsu - notched up shipments of 900,000 units.
All the named suppliers but Dell saw shipments fall sequentially - the PC giant's shipments were the same quarter on quarter. Lenovo and Asus experienced the biggest falls, with shipments down 50 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, between Q4 and Q1.
DisplaySearch said 45 per cent of the netbooks that shipped in Q1 went into Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Some 26 per cent went into North America. ®
COMMENTS
they stopped being netbooks...
...the latest range of netbooks have all moved away from the original concept, small & cheap, the price is creeping up, blurring the decision in whether to buy a netbook or full laptop for your average consumer.
price ...
I was one of those who wanted to get netbook but didn't.... I got much faster Gateway dual-core 13'' screen, 255GB HDD and 3GB ram,. DVD burner for $499 ... I'm still big fan of netbooks, but I think laptop market is catching up and offers pretty interesting prices
it would be interesting to see laptop/netbook graph for at least 1 year to supress seasonality, as both Richard and Torben pointed out, Q1 is very higly seasonal. I also think some users are waiting for Win7 which is coming in Q3/Q4
Umm
So, demand for a consumer device fell after the Christmas buying period .. wot a surprise.
Lies, damn lies and statistics
It is no surprise that Q1 sales are lower than Q4 sales: Netbooks are consumer electronics, and as such have higher sales up to Christmas than shortly after. Even corporate sales tend to be higher at year end, as people want to spend what's left on the years budget (or risk reduced budget next year).
Also, little new has arrived on the netbook market: They are all basically the same Atom-based, 1024x600 screen, 1GB RAM, 9-10" netbooks that we could buy in Q4, and at much the same prices, so there is no added incentive to buy now.
This might well change over summer, if/when the promised ARM-based low-cost, light-weight, long-battery-life netbooks arrive.
