ABI surveyed 1000 people about netbooks. According to their results, only 79% see them as a secondary computer. 11% see them as a primary computer proving that there is a significant overlap an direct impact on notebook sales. No surprise really.
The results are not good news for laptop and netbook manufacturers in general, despite the 79% that are buying a netbooks as a second device. Here are some thoughts from the top of my head.
Any survey done at the moment is dealing with early-curve consumers that are highly likely to buy a second device. In one year the figures might be worse purely based on the change of customer type (although it will be hard to do this survey in the mainstream market as many consumers may not even know they’ve bought a netbook)
Even if people buy a netbook as a secondary device, it will change their purchasing rhythm pushing the purchase of a replacement notebook further out. In some cases the netbook may satisfy the customer 100% and the next notebook purchase may never happen.
As netbooks move to bigger screens, they pull prices of normal laptops down in order to compete on perceived value.
My feeling is that the netbook effect is going to hit manufacturers very hard in the next 3 years. Netbooks aren’t going away though so they will need to find a way to cope with it. This means stripping out niche products, reducing quality and implementing lots of tricky marketing.
In the video, I talk about my choices of today’s element (fire) and my transport of the day (the bicycle), and take you on a little tour of Edinburgh.
The Compal was used for three main areas today wiring up blog posts, doing the route planning (courtesy of Google Maps, which takes me on a weird route I wouldn’t have considered), and pointing out the extra information about the monuments on Calton Hill available by browsing the internet when you’re standing next to them.
Japan’s population is about 128 million people so to say that one in 25 will buy a MID in 2012, just over 3 years away, seems a little surprising. Even more surprising is the prediction that, together with 18 million smartphone sales, the MID/Smartphone segment will form about 40% of the total handset market meaning MIDs would be 10% of the total handset market. However, the definition of a MID that has been used seems slightly off-mark and puts the average screen size at 3.5 inches. I could understand an average of 4" but 3.5"? Too small for 800×480? Cue Touch HD owners…
The concept of MID is defined in this report according to five conditions, which are Mobility, Always-On, Embedded 3G+, Display Size, and Full Browsing. This report emphasizes that in order to offer mobility while being differentiated from Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), MIDs have to be embedded with 3G+ cellular chip. When mobile WiMAX is vitalized, MID products that cover voice services based on VoIP and offer mobile broadband might hit the market.
PC World report that netbooks make up most of the Cyber Monday top-10 sales list on Amazon.com. It it’s not just on Amazon.com that it’s happening. Germany and the UK are two other netbook-crazy countries where netbook interest is leading, not just the computer segments, but the whole consumer electronics segment. The Samsung NC10, for example, is the number three most-viewed device in the popular German price comparison engine, Geizhals. That’s number three out of over 300,000 consumer products including DVD’s, phones and LCD TV’s. At number 10 is the Eee PC. The Wii appears at number 11 and the first notebook appears at number 35.
Anyone care to take a guess at how it might look in 12 months?
Part One: ‘What is Ultra Mobile Computing?‘ We give you a history of Ultra Mobile computing, show you how the devices break down into segments and show you what each segment is capable of.
Part Two: ‘Details and Choices.‘ It covers the form factors, the keyboard, storage, the screen and connectivity elements of an Ultra Mobile PC. You’ll find a good overview and a lot of tips that will help you refine your choice.
Part Three ‘Details and Choices (contd.)‘ continues the details about the components and covers CPU (including a detailed overview of the currently available solutions) GPU, memory, battery, weight and cost.
Part Four: ‘Additional Information and further reading.‘ In this section we cover some of the less commonly found features on Ultra Mobile computers and give you information and links to further reading resources.
