Netbook fears are unfounded

THE LATEST sales figures show that Microsoft's and Intel's fears that netbooks will kill off the notebook market are groundless.

Microsoft and Intel were so fearful that netbooks would mean the death of their lucrative laptops trade that they made all sorts of manoeuvres to prevent cheaper netbook chips and software from being installed in notebooks.

However, according to Daily Finance, the latest figures from DisplaySearch reveal that, while there was a small amount of cannibalisation as netbooks ate into notebook demand somewhat, most people bought the shrunken thightops as a secondary machine.

John Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research for DisplaySearch, said that punters were buying something smaller and lighter for more basic computing needs but were still interested in full-sized laptops.

By DisplaySearch's tally, netbooks' share of the total portables market rose from 5.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2008 to 22.2 percent in 2009. As a market segment, it is growing twice as fast as the notebook sector.

This has been helped by the fact that in Europe many telecom firms are giving away netbooks to people who sign up for two-year data contracts.

In China and Latin America, netbook market penetration is actually higher than that of larger portables. But these are either emerging markets or reflect user situations where a notebook would not be a suitable sale.

Either way the Vole and Intel will be breathing a sigh of relief at the news. µ