The cheap, little netbook will continue its romp through the marketplace, accounting for 25% of notebook shipments in 2010, according to Acer Inc. That's about 50mn units, up from forecasts of 25mn-30mn units this year. China is expected to take about 10% of the netboook market this year, as China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom offer large subsidies for the tiny PCs in order to woo subscribers for newly built 3G networks.

Acer reckons it will grab about 40%-50% market share by 2010, which should help its presence in China. Currently, Acer derives only 5% of revenue from China, the second largest PC market. As China tries to increase its reliability on domestic consumption as a driver of GDP, the market opportunities will continue to grow. Acer needs to increase its market share here and netbooks can go a long way toward boosting brand recognition.

That's it for now. On to other things.

PS: Acer forcasts notebook shipments of 170mn units this year, up 32% YoY, and 200mn for 2010.

PPS: The increase in netbook shhipments this year to 25mn-30mn units represents a doubling over last year's 13.5 mn shipments.

PPPS: A few related stories from DigiTimes

Demand for Intel Atom processors slowing

Demand for Intel's Atom netbook processors has begun to slow down as the netbook market faces price-cut competition from low-end notebooks as well as the launch of CULV-based notebooks, according to market sources.

Another reason for dropping netbook demand is users delaying their purchases to wait for Intel to launch the next generation Atom processor in the second half of this year, the sources noted.

Intel has started turning its supply priority of Atom processors to second-tier and China-based vendors hoping to clear inventory, added the sources.

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Netbook parts and components in short supply, says DRAMeXchange
   
Max Wang, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 27 April 2009]

The supply of up-stream parts and components for netbooks has become increasingly tight recently as white-box netbook vendors in China are ramping up output to meet anticipated demand from China's 3G operators, according sources at DRAMeXchange.

Support from Intel and VIA Technologies for development of the netbook market in China has also resulted in a proliferation of netbook products, triggering the shortage, said other market watchers.

Current supplies of up-stream netbook parts and components are barely enough to meet 50-70% of market demand, with CPUs, LED parts and network ICs in severe shortage, said DRAMeXchange.

IC distributors reportedly plan to hike the prices of Intel's Atom, as well as VIA's C7-M CPUs by 5-10%, and prices of DRAM modules by 20-30% in May, the Chinese-language Commercial Times quoted market sources as indicating.

The tight supply is not expected to ease until the latter half of June, DRAMeXchange said.

Total while-box netbook shipments are expected to top 2.5-3 million units in China during 2009, accounting for about 8% of global netbook shipments, DRAMeXchange estimated.

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