OUT OF THE GATE
PC World reports that there may be an upset in the race for global primacy in Netbooks, the new hot thing in computers*:
"Acer, the world's third-largest PC vendor, said shipments of its Aspire one netbook could reach 6 million units this year, which would edge out Asustek Computer's popular Eee PC at the top of the market.
Asus has set a target for Eee PC shipments this year of 5 million, which would be a million shy of the lead if Acer meets its target.
The
defeat may not be easy for Asus to accept since the company has largely
been responsible for popularizing the netbook idea commercially with
the Eee PC.
Asus launched the Eee PC late last year to great
fanfare at its small size and price. The least expensive Eee PC at the
time came with a 7-inch screen and an NT$7999 (US$240) price tag."
Netbooks have taken the mainstream PC world by storm in recent months, with every major participant, including HP and Dell, already selling Netbooks, and having an aggressive roll-out plan for new Netbooks in coming months.
These new computers are a key reason why Asus and Acer are catching up mainstream PC vendors like HP and Dell, as this internetnews piece indicates:
"Taiwan's Acer surged past global champion Hewlett-Packard in European
personal computer sales in the third quarter, in the clearest sign of
the move toward cheap, small mini-notebook computers, research firm
Gartner said on Tuesday."
Worldwide PC shipments rose 15 percent in the quarter, with HP (NYSE: HPQ) in the lead, followed by Dell.
The July-September period was marked by strong growth in the
lower-cost mini-notebook category, which Acer has been focusing on,
Gartner analyst Mika Kitagawa said. This helped bolster the overall PC
market in he face of slumping consumer spending.
...less than 5 percent of overall PC shipments are mini-notebooks, but she said the market seems to be growing.
Overall, worldwide PC shipments rose 15 percent from last year
to 80.6 million units. At the same time, U.S. shipments rose 4.6
percent to 17.4 million units.
HP shipped 14.8 million units in the quarter, for a market
share of 18.4 percent, barely changed from a year ago. Dell was in
second place with a share of 13.6 percent, down 0.5 percent from last
year, while Acer's piece of the market jumped to 12.5 percent from 9.7
percent."
"Apple of course is the one company without an entry in this segment, despite a PC market share approaching 10% of the US market for the first time in it's history. As this other PC World article reports:
Apple accounted for nearly 10% of all U.S. computer sales last
quarter, but the lack of a model in the growing netbook category could
mean trouble ahead, a research analyst said Wednesday.
According to Gartner Inc.'s
preliminary estimates, Apple sold 1.64 million machines during the
period, a 29% increase year-to-year over the same period in 2007, to
put it in third place behind Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. For the quarter, Apple accounted for 9.5% of all the machines sold in the U.S, up from 8.1% a year ago and 8.5% last quarter."
It's still early in this market for low-cost computers, and the picture gets more complex when you consider that smartphones like the iPhone and others, are increasingly capable of doing many of the things that Netbooks do today. This is a point that Steve Jobs himself made on a recent Apple analyst call:
Jobs acknowledged that there are segments of the market that the
company serves, and some it does not. Netbooks are apparently part of
the latter. "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a
piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that," Jobs said..."
"You know one of our entrants into that category, if you will, is the
iPhone, for browsing the Internet and doing email doing all the things
that a netbook lets you do. And can be connected via the celluar net
wherever you are. The iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it
fits in your pocket. But we'll wait and see how that nascent market
evolves, and we have some pretty good ideas if it does."
The PC Magazine piece went on to add
"Incidentally, Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones during the quarter --
more than the company had sold during the entire lifespan of the
iPhone"
Looked at it in that light, Netbooks have come a long way, being "junk" or not. Both Asus and Acer are approaching unit volumes individually that Apple's done in a quarter with the iPhone. And that's something that likely has not missed Apple's attention.
*Image source.
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