State of them Netbooks – May 2010
Posted on May 6th, 2010 by Nidhi
A couple of brief facts, opinions and questions about how the netbook industry is doing as of this month.
- Intel’s latest sales figures show that Atom sales are dipping – down to 20% in Q1 2010 from 23% in Q4 2009. [cnet] And we all know Atom powered netbooks make up the majority of the market.
- It makes sense that sales would be down in Q1 2010…. Q4 is shopping season with Thanksgiving and Christmas as major sales boosters. Moreover, with the introduction of the new line of Atoms, old netbooks were selling at heavily discounted rates (yep, in addition to the steep HOLIDAY SALES).
*
- Industry writers are citing the Apple iPad as a reason for the decline in netbook sales this year, even though the iPad only a month ago. According to Steve Jobs though, sales surpassed the 1,000,000 sales mark within 28 days of launch. [mashable] No stats on netbook sales in the month of April have been released yet, so while it makes sense that netbook sales would have been affected, let’s wait for them numbers.
- Besides, is the iPad owner really the kind of person who would buy a netbook?
- If iPad sales are indeed killing the US markets, will this finally be the push needed for netbook sales teams to focus on the rest of the world, especially the (comparatively) booming third world nations esp. India and China where low-priced netbooks would make an attractive buy? Esp. since these countries could provide huge volumes and the ever-shrinking netbook profit margins could really add up to a sizable amount.
*
- Netbook sales in Q1 2010 are expected to have grown by only 33.6% as opposed to the 872% growth spurt witnessed in Q1 2009. [businessweek]
- A couple of flaws with the framing of that above sentence. (1) Netbooks were introduced in 2008, so of course a humongous growth would be seen Q1 2009. (2) the economy tanked end of 2008, setting the perfect platform for increased sales of the low-cost ‘recession busting’ netbooks. (3) 33.6% = 1.2 million which may not be a lot compared to the past, but is still a good sizable GREEN amount.
*
- “Netbook market may have already peaked” [cnet]
- Yep they probably did peak in 2009. But to be fair, 2009 also saw surge in smart phones and smart books, CULVs, tablets and a whole array of category-defying devices.
I’ll end with this question: Will APAC countries provide netbooks the sales boost they need before numbers start dipping below the dotted line?
–
P.S. this post was written a few minutes after the US Dow Jones dropped 900 points.
Related posts:
- Netbook Statistics – Comparing 2008, 2009 and 2010
- State of them Netbooks (December ’09)
- NPD Forecast: Netbook sales in 2009 exceed 2008 – by a LOT
- Netbook sales soar in Q2 2009
- Where your netbooks are coming from
Filed under: Uncategorized