Notebooks ship more than desktops for the first time

We’ve just passed a significant point in the history of computing - the notebook has taken over from the desktop as the most popular computing platform, an inevitable milestone on the road to ubiquitous mobile computing and connectivity. Fuelled by the success of the emerging netbook market, global notebook PC shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units.

In taking over as the primary computing form factor, the notebook is probably just holding the baton for a few years before its constituent sub-set of netbooks dominates the market – just 500,000 netbooks were sold in 2007, over 10 million this year and IDC predicts 40 million units by 2012. The emergence of the cut down, lightweight, cloud computing netbook has been the big story of 2008. It has taken just 60 years to squeeze a computer which filled a room, into a usable form factor of less then 1 kilogram and a price less than a weekly wage. One wonders what the next decade holds in store for us.

If IDC’s prediction holds true, the Netbook will have gone from obscurity to the dominant “traditional” computing platform in half a decade. The battle between phone-based computing and netbook-based computing is looming with mobile telephones such as the Apple iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile based phones with ever broadening computing capabilities each vying for the consumer. Already we are seeing netbooks approaching half the price of the top mobile phones, so we’re in for an exciting time over the next few years as the netbook market capitalises on its price advantage.

Already this holiday period we have seen RadioShack offering an Acer Aspire One 3G Netbook for US$99 if you take a two-year AT&T DataConnect contract – the same business model which has driven mobile phone sales for decades. In the U.K., the Acer Aspire One has been selling for below UKP200 in places, so it’s not surprising that with such value on offer, the Aspire is likely to retain the top-selling netbook mantle it grabbed during the third quarter. The Aspire One had 38.3 percent of the Netbook market in the third quarter, ahead of the Asus Eee PC 4G.

iSuppli Corp’s press release follows:

Notebook PC Shipments Exceed Desktops for First Time in Q3 Global notebook PC shipments exceeded those of desktops on a quarterly basis for the first time ever in the third quarter, marking a watershed event in the history of the industry, according to iSuppli Corp.

Notebook PC shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units.

...continued