Businesses and consumers will purchase 36 million netbooks in 2010 globally, according to research firm Techaisle, which said Monday that the figure reaffirms its initial forecast released in mid 2009.
Business netbook penetration will be 5.3% and consumer netbook penetration will be 1.8%, said the firm. There will be a "short and transient shift of netbook purchases among consumers from some mature markets into a few newly emerging markets," in 2010, the firm said in a statement. European businesses will continue to adopt netbooks "in decent numbers" during the same timeframe, and they are especially popular with small retail shop owners, Techaisle said.
Maximum PC: Say goodbye to the netbook as you know it. In a couple of years, netbooks will virtually disappear from the market place, becoming the first true casualty of the tablet era. Even today there really isn't much of a market for netbooks, a category that was at the height of its popularity just three short years ago. In 2010, it seemed like OEMs were lining our inboxes with new netbooks announcements on a daily basis.
Digitimes: While Asustek Computer and Acer will no longer launch netbooks in 2013, Intel will still maintain its Cedar Trail M platform primarily for use in its Classmate PCs, according to sources with Taiwan-based notebook supply chain makers.
Maximum PC: Remember when netbooks were the hottest item in PC land? You could hardly go a week without being buried under an avalanche of new netbook announcements. My, how things have changed. Strictly speaking, the netbook category is no more. Asus is reportedly ending its Eee PC line, and Acer hasn't announced plans to launch any new netbook models. The same goes for MSI and all the other netbook players. So, what happened?
