Demand for Netbooks has been hot and is likely to get hotter, as sales of their big brother, notebooks, are set to remain steady this year.
Netbooks are projected to grab a 20 percent share of the worldwide market for 2009, according to a report released Monday by researcher DisplaySearch, an NPD Group subsidiary. Consumers are expected to scoop up almost 33 million Netbooks this year, marking a sales gain of close to 100 percent from last year's 16 million.
But notebook sales are set to be flat this year, with 129 million units shipping, virtually the same as in 2008, according to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report. This would make the first year ever that the notebook market showed no sales growth. DisplaySearch defines notebooks as laptop computers with screens measuring 12.1 inches or larger.
By region, this year's Netbook sales are forecast to jump 260 percent in China, 137 percent in North America, and 88 percent in Latin America.
(Credit:
DisplaySearch)
The affordability of Netbooks, which typically have fewer features and are less powerful than notebooks, has fostered their growth around the world, the report noted. Last year, 45 percent of Netbooks were shipped to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), winning a larger market share over notebooks.
The availability of Netbooks has also boosted sales, DisplaySearch said. Telecommunications providers such as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Communications have marketed low-cost, subsidized Netbooks to their customers.
The notebook market itself has been hurt by reduced IT spending, stalling purchases on new units. If Windows 7 takes off at the same time the economy revives, notebook demand among enterprises could shoot up next year.
Notebooks also have carved out a large chunk of the global portable PC market, and they are not being replaced by Netbooks at this point.
"It is clear that buyers want a lightweight device but that they also want a bigger display," said John F. Jacobs, director of notebook market research at DisplaySearch and author of the report. "While (Netbooks) have certainly created a new market, our research indicates that they are predominantly used as secondary PCs by consumers and are not replacing notebooks."
The video game industry had better thank its lucky stars that hard-core gamers do what they do.
According to a report issued Monday morning by industry analyst firm, The NPD Group, the most active group of players, which it termed "extreme gamers," devote more than a full-time job's work week to their avocation. But they don't get insurance benefits for their efforts.
Rather, NPD's "Games Segmentation 2008" report explained, extreme gamers put in an average of 45 hours a week playing games, and, even better--for the video game industry's coffers--bought a whopping 24 titles in the last three months.
True, these committed gamers make up just 3 percent of the 174 million that NPD said play on PCs or Macs or dedicated video game machines. Still, that means 5.22 million people out there are putting in serious amounts of time gaming away. And if you stop and think about the dollars they're spending, if they're buying 24 games every three months, it's kind of breathtaking.
The NPD report identified seven different segments of gamers, including our extreme friends. The others include 9 percent who are "avid PC gamers," 17 percent who are console gamers, 14 percent who are online PC gamers, 15 percent who are offline PC gamers, 22 percent who are "young heavy gamers" and 20 percent who are "secondary" gamers.
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Update at 3:30 p.m. PDT: This post has been modified to reflect the public release by NPD of its April video game industry sales figures.
Nintendo's Wii was the best-selling next-generation video game console in April, research firm NPD Group said Thursday afternoon.
Nintendo had earlier put out its own release citing NPD's numbers.
According to NPD, the Wii outsold Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 in April. The Wii sold 714,000 Wiis during the month, bringing its total sales in the United States since the Wii's launch in late 2006 to 9.5 million units.
NPD said that Microsoft sold 188,000 Xbox 360s in April, while Sony moved 187,100 PlayStation 3s.
For its part, Microsoft on Wednesday said it had reached the 10 million mark for total Xbox 360s sold in the U.S., making the Xbox 360 the first next-gen console to reach that number. Microsoft argued that that's a milestone that historically has been met by the eventual winner of each console generation.
The fact that the Wii came out on top in April is notable given that the industry's biggest event last month was the April 29 launch of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
While it's true that the game was only out for two days last month, it seemed as though it had driven significant sales of both the Xbox and the PS3.
Still, NPD said that GTA IV took two of the three top slots for software sales, with the Xbox version moving 1.85 million copies, and the PS3 version selling 1 million units.
In its own release, Nintendo touted its success with its own games during April, according to the NPD numbers.
Its Mario Kart Wii was the second best-selling game of all during the month, with 1.12 million copies sold. Overall, 6 of the top 10 best-selling games during April were Wii games.
NPD also pointed out that both the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP outsold the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The DS sold 414,800 units, and the PSP sold 192,700.
Overall, NPD's research indicates that the video game industry is doing well. It said that there was a total of $1.23 billion in game sales in April, a 47 percent increase over the $839 million sold a year earlier. Similarly, hardware sales were up 26 percent, from $339 million in April 2007 to $426 million in April 2008.
Note: On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.
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