Netbook demand dropped 26% in Q1

But decline matched industry average

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

13th May 2009 12:46 GMT

Demand for netbooks was indeed down in Q1 - as yesterday's Atom processor shipment figures suggested - but by the industry average, figures form market watcher DisplaySearch show.

According to the researcher, 5.9m netbooks were shipped worldwide in Q1, down 26 per cent from the 8m shipped in Q4 2008. In Q1, netbooks accounted for around a fifth of the total sales of portable PCs, some 30.3m units in all, including regular laptops.

Notebooks shipments were down 25 per cent sequentially.

Acer dominated the netbook market in Q1, shipping 1.8m machines, DisplaySearch said. The netbook pioneer, Asus, came second, shipping 900,000 mini laptops, followed by HP (700,000), Dell (400,000), Toshiba and Lenovo (both shipping 200,000). The 'others' category - including the likes of Samsung, MSI and Fujitsu - notched up shipments of 900,000 units.

All the named suppliers but Dell saw shipments fall sequentially - the PC giant's shipments were the same quarter on quarter. Lenovo and Asus experienced the biggest falls, with shipments down 50 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, between Q4 and Q1.

DisplaySearch said 45 per cent of the netbooks that shipped in Q1 went into Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Some 26 per cent went into North America. ®