Netbooks account for 20 percent of notebook shipments

Preliminary data from DisplaySearch reveals that shipments of almost 6 million mini-note PCs (netbooks) raised their penetration in the notebook PC market close to 20% worldwide in Q1’09. Acer was the leader in the mini-note category with a market share of 30.5%, shipping twice as many mini-notes as Asus, their nearest rival. HP continued their dominance of the notebook PC category, growing share to 24.1%, with more than 7.3 million shipped.

Penetration rates for mini-notes were the highest in EMEA and Latin America, and the lowest in China, Japan and North America. Approximately 45% of all mini-notes shipped in the quarter went into EMEA, compared to less than 26% in North America. By contrast, EMEA accounted for 38% of the total notebook market, while North America was less than 30%. The differences in share between EMEA and North America may be a result of telecom subsidy plans in Europe. Telecom providers in Europe began experimenting with free or heavily discounted mini-notes with the purchase of two-year data plans in early 2008, but the first US-based telecom providers tried such subsidies in December 2008, and they have only very recently begun to expand these promotional programs.

For the notebook PC industry as a whole, #2 Acer passed #3 Dell, capturing 18.8% of the market. However, of the top five notebook PC brands, Acer had the greatest percentage of their total shipments accounted for by mini-notes by far(31.6%), compared to HP, Dell, Toshiba and Lenovo, all of whom shipped less than 10% of their volume as mini-notes.