Some of you are perhaps getting tired of the flow of netbook news, both here at NordicHardware and other hardware sites, but there is a reason there is such great interest for the netbook market. More or less every PC builder have launched an affordable and ultraportable notebook, often based on the Intel’s Atom platform, which has now also been concluded by analysts. Both Gartner and IDC have released reports the reveal that the netbook market have grown at a massive rate in Europe, especially during the third quarter of 2008.
The sales of notebooks increased by a whopping 52 percent in the third quarter 2008, year-to-year. A large portion of this is without a doubt thanks to netbooks that started appearing in the form of ASUS Eee PC 701 in the fourth quarter of 2007. In the third quarter of 2008, every tenth sold PC was a netbook and they estimate that the 2 million units sold will double under under the fourth quarter, up to 4 million with an improved assortment and better availability.
The netbook market isn’t just something that has been hyped by the media, but it has also been well received by the consumers. Whether this is a short-lived fad or if the concept that will live on remains to be seen.
