Netbook Statistics – Notebook revenues decline | Acer Review, Asus Review

Netbook Statistics – Notebook revenues decline

Posted on October 11th, 2009 by Nidhi

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the end of Quarter 3 and Display Search has a lovely report on netbook & notebook shipments and forecasts filled with insights just waiting to be analyzed.

Key takeaway from this report: from a business standpoint, making low prices of the USP was instrumental in giving the new market the boost it needed to reach the mainstream electronics market. However increased competition and the ability to offer more for less is crucifying not only the netbook market but also for the notebook market – in terms of revenue.

ThePC market could have very well been the cash cows for manufacturers… they would up their brand image by infusing every home with say Asus Eee PC netbooks. But at the end of the day it up-ed their street cred when it came to 14″ notebooks and above, which give them higher profit margins.

Now however, we find ourselves at a point where notebook sales are on a severe decline:

In Q2’09, the value of the total notebook PC market (including netbooks) was $26.4 billion, up 10% Q/Q but down 5% Y/Y. [Down from $27.9 billion in Q2'08]

Notebook PCs (excluding netbooks) saw a decline of 14% Y/Y. The market was worth $27 billion in Q208 and is now worth $23 billion.

For larger notebook PCs, revenue in every category was down Y/Y, and only the portable category (those with displays from 13” to 16”) posted Q/Q growth.

On the other hand, netbooks are doing extremely well and have posted a 264% increase in revenue Y/Y (up 37% Q/Q). The netbook market has mature from $0.8 billion in Q2’08 and is now worth $3 billion. Not bad, considering they’re about a third/a quarter the price of most notebooks.

John Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research points that netbooks have boosted volume performance of the portabel PC market, but are having a deep impact on overall revenue.He adds:

“For 2009, we expect continued ASP erosion across all portable computer categories, leading to the first Y/Y decline of portable computer revenue.”

The poor PC industry. They have a stellar product that is wildly successful – projected volume of sales of netbooks are 21.5% for 2010. But a product that brings in the least revenue – estimated 10.9% of overall portable computer market for 2010.

The recession doesn’t make it easier for anyone, with less people able to shell out large bucks for notebooks, and more spending on netbooks instead. Maybe it’s time for a huge internal reflection for netbook manufacturers. Time for them to streamline the manufacturing process to reduce their internal cost/netbook. And time to stop hacking away the prices of netbooks.

Not sure the latter is possible at this point – don’t all tech products have to cut prices to survive (think the price of DVD players back in the day and now). So they’ll have to go for the former.

Thoughts?

More reading on Netbook Future, Statistics & Trends:

Our analysis of netbook sales as of Display Search’s Quarter 2 2009 report

Our analysis of Netbook Future Trends based on Inte IDF Internal Research

Filed under: Netbook Analysis