Acer Review, Asus Review – Netbook 10

Here are some of the interesting facts about the current and future netbooks market I’ve found out  –

1. Asus’ EeePC was the first netbook and its huge success led to a lot more companies entering the space. The two big companies that haven’t jumped in yet are Apple and Sony. 
2. Apple is rumoured to be looking to release a 9 or 10 inch iTouch based netbook like product in the Fall of 2009.
3. In 2007 there are reports that approximately 400K netbooks were sold. I’ve heard figures as high as 1 million. 
4. In 2008 reports indicate that netbook sales were in the 10-14 million range. Initial estimates of 8 million had to be revised upwards after strong sales in the last quarter of 2008. 
5. Initially Asus were the top selling netbook brand – However in 2008 Acer took over the #1 spot.
6. Amazon’s notebook/netbook sales charts are dominated by netbooks.
7. Forrester Research is pushing the theory that most people are buying netbooks as a 2nd or even 3rd computer and that netbooks are the 3rd PC form factor (after desktops and laptops/notebooks). 
8. Linux was the OS in most early netbooks. However, a lot of returns of netbooks with Linux amongst other factors like Microsoft pushing XP resulted in XP becoming the predominant OS. These days, XP is the OS for approximately 90% of Netbooks.
9. Microsoft has said that it is working on making Windows 7 work with netbooks.
10. The companies that make netbooks include Asus (EeePc), Acer (Aspire One), MSI (MSI Wind), Dell (Dell Mini), HP (HP Mini-note), and many more.
11. Netbooks bring a lot of benefits – very low prices, very high portability, super long battery life (at least when compared to laptops).
12. Intel is working on a new processor platform (titled Moorestown and due in 2009) that ought to be much more powerful and power efficient than the Intel Atom platform which most netbooks currently use.
13. Acer has close to 40% of the market and Asus has close to 30%. HP, MSI and Dell come next, although they only have single digit market share.
14. CitiGroup expects 29 million netbooks to sell in 2010.
15. As far as netbook processors, Intel dominates the market. Texas Instruments and Via Technologies come in at 2nd and 3rd respectively.

I’ll add more to this as I find interesting netbook stuff.

Related posts:

1. Netbooks – the Operating System Wars

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