The netbook market emerged from practically nowhere and has grown into a force to reckon with in just a year. The fact is that the netbook has grown to make up 11% of the total notebook market in the fourth quarter, in just a year. Pretty impressive for such a short period of time. DisplayBank is the company that has presented these numbers and claims that 14.6 million netbooks was sold in 2008, and even though ASUS started it all with the Eee PC family it is no longer the biggest actor.
It’s rival Acer that are getting the biggest volumes shipped and with 37.3 percent market share it looks to have its goal of 50% in 2009 within reach. According to DisplayBank, Acer is not expected to claim more than 42.9%, which is still a pretty impressive market dominance. ASUS was the unthreatened runner-up in 2008 with 33.2%, while other manufacturers has to share the remaining 30%.
In 2009 the netbook market is expected to grow and eventually make up around 17.2% of the total sales of notebooks. After 2009 the market will be somewhat saturated up until 2012 as the market is expected to only grow up to 18.9% of the total notebook market in 2012. This doesn’t quite match previous predictions.
