Netbooks and Mini Laptops see large Increase in Sales in 2008
By Wilson • Dec 29th, 2008 • Category: UncategorizedThe significant increase in the sale of mini laptops in the year 2008 took PC makers by surprise. Inspired by the One Laptop per Child project which is a non profit venture, there was boost in the sales of ultra light notebooks, so-called netbooks, which were intended to be very compact and low price. With inspiration from the OLPC project, Asus manufactured the ultra successful Eee PC and the rest is history. Soon every major computer manufacturer came out with its own netbook model and a new mobile computing market was formed.
These ultra portable machines were originally accessible only for business travelers. However, last year saw the laptops from Asus, such as the Asus Eee PC S101 posting huge sales. In fact, big computer makers such as Lenovo, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer swiftly followed with their own slender machine versions. Apple is next in the line for releasing a budget laptop.
Growth rates of these laptops are astronomical, according to the research manager from IDC, Richard Shim. He said, only a year back, no one was even talking about them. According to Intel, these mini laptops will actually serve as a second or third computer in the West. Mini laptops are bigger than smart phones and smaller than regular laptops. Only time will tell whether these laptops will continue to make impressive sales and establish their presence.
According to IDC, as compared to last year’s few hundred thousand, they were expecting to ship at least 11 million netbooks worldwide. They were expecting additional sales of ten million next year.
It remains to be seen if users can sacrifice the comfort of bigger screens and added power for a mini sized laptop.
Tags for this article: laptop, netbook, Laptops
