35 million netbooks to ship in 2009
Netbooks are still set to top nearly 35 million units by the end of the year, ABI said today. The prediction is similar to that from the start of the year and asserts that the mini portables will form a significant portion of the entire PC business. ABI doesn't predict market share but says that Acer, ASUS and Samsung produced 74 percent of all netbooks last year.
The PCs have been a mixed blessing for the industry. Their low cost and popularity has helped prop up shipping numbers for those producing the computers but is believed to have destroyed revenue by not only reducing profit margins but steering some customers away from more lucrative regular notebooks. A handful of companies like Apple have consciously avoided the category to either preserve their brand images or out of concerns of profitability and quality.
