Dell and HP moving away from 10-inch netbooks?

DigiTimes reports HP and Dell have both significantly reduced investments in the 10" netbook segments, and HP is reportedly even considering to quit shipping 10" netbooks due to lower than expected profits from this product segment. Other firms like Acer, Asus and Samsung will remain active in this market, but the site also heard that the chilling of the netbook market is expected to impact vendors' willingness to launch smartbook products.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell have both significantly reduced their investments in the 10-inch netbook segment, with HP reportedly even considering quitting the 10-inch netbook market and turning its focus to AMD-based 11.6-inch notebooks because profits from Intel Pine Trail-based netbooks have been lower than expected, according to sources from notebook makers.

Most of the second-tier and white-box netbook vendors have already quit the market after first-tier players started cutting their netbook prices in the second half of 2009 to compete for market share.