Oxymoron of the day: User Friendly
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Asus gets milkshake drunk by Acer
ASUS MIGHT HAVE created the market for netbooks - the mini laptops that aren't quite - but it seems that Asus is having its milkshake drunk by competitors, particularly arch-rival Acer.
Numbers out of research outfit NPD say that the Acer Aspire One, built on the Intel Atom platform, is now edging out Eee PC sales in the North American retail market. Acer shipped 2.15m Aspires in the third quarter of this year, whilst Asus managed to sell just 1.7m Eee netbooks during the same time frame.
That growth has catapulted Acer up the table of the most successful netbook and notebook makers. Acer's market share is up 65% year on year, according to NPD, vaulting over Dell to take the number two spot behind HP. Apple managed to gain 24% share over the course of the year to become the seventh largest worldwide brand.
The outlook is not all bad for Asus, however. It saw 189% growth in shipments in 2008, taking it from the category of 'other' up to fifth place. Not a bad achievement, even if the Acer coup stings a little.
On the charity mini-note front, the OLPC managed to eek 130,000 units out the door in Q3 - a fairly grim number given the project's touted potential. But even that sorry number was better than Intel, which managed to shift merely 60,000 Classmate PCs in the same period. Oh dear.
Apple now remains the only major notebook brand not in the netbook market, if you leave out the Macbook Air. That, at least, is one consolation for Asus. µ
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ASUS is an innovator but ACER really knows how to sell. I have read that they have persuaded many ISPs in Europe to use the netbooks as freebies for new accounts. That should push up volume as upwardly mobile folks sign up or change ISP. Perhaps ACER is doing the same thing in the USA. ACER also does not seem shy to drop prices as needed. ASUS has actually increased the price/feature bloating of its products. Perhaps they should learn from ACER.
Finally some proof on the neverending arguments on market position of Netbooks
To many vendors are bringing out 300ukp models and thinking they will sell on size alone...Maybe they will, however not in large quantities. The ORIGINAL eepc was such a revalation as its was fast enough for everyday tasks however it was also CHEAP. Acer realised and capitalised on this with the AA1. That can still be had for 175ukp, a bargain.