The rise of
netbooks could be potentially damaging to the technology industry, according to new research from IDC. Whilst the
PC market grew by 11.9 per cent in western Europe last year, the growth was largely driven by portables machines and netbooks, whereas
desktop sales slumped. Outide Europe, however, the growth of the PC market has slowed down in other areas. Once the Middle East and Africa are accounted for, along with Europe, PC sales grew by just 1.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2008, as the impact of the economic downturn became apparent.
Consequently, the PC market contracted by 23.8 per cent for the first time ever. Analysts have said that chip makers such as
Intel could be among the hardest hit, as they would have to sell three times as many processors for the netbook market to make the same profit as they do for a single sale of a
laptop processor.
HP remain the biggest seller in the PC market, with their sales up by 13 per cent, giving them 21.6 per cent of the market.
Acer remain second in the rankings, up by 21.9 per cent to 16.6 per cent of the market, whilst
Dell are behind them with 9.4 per cent of the market.