Netbook market to continue to grow next year

Having enjoyed a whopping growth of more than 200 percent this year, Indonesia’s market for netbooks — small lightweight portable computers — may still grow, but by as little as 1 percent next year, predicts research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

Netbooks are low-priced laptops with screens 7 to 10 inches wide, designed to run light applications and surf the web. Netbooks’ overall performances are lower than notebooks, which generally can handle more complex applications, and naturally, have much higher prices.

PC vendors in Indonesia, however, are showing more confidence to the netbook market in 2010. Acer Indonesia’s president director Jason Lim said he was expecting to see bigger growth than predicted by IDC, with optimism shared by Acer’s main competitor, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Indonesia.

“[Netbook competition in 2010] will spur vendors to be more creative in creating products with features and differentiations that are outstanding to make them better than other products,” HP’s category director for personal system groups, Martin Wibisono, told The Jakarta Post.

“The game will change,” he said.

The netbook market in Indonesia has shown a sterling performance in 2009 as demand grew for low-priced portable PCs.

After netbooks were introduced to the market in 2007, producers have enjoyed a boom in sales throughout this year. IDC said netbook sales in 2009 are predicted to skyrocket to more than 453,000 units, or a 267 percent jump from last year’s 123,560 units.

“Consumers are attracted to netbooks because of the portability and low selling prices, making them affordable to first-time PC users,” Lim said.

Acer still leads in national notebook sales, which includes sales of netbooks. It took a 27.6 percent market share during the third quarter of 2009, down from 28.2 percent in the second quarter.

HP, on the other hand, gained stronger ground in the third quarter of this year, trailing closely behind Acer with 26.5 percent of the market share, up from 18.5 percent in the previous quarter.

IDC’s report shows that HP posted a 85 percent growth in notebook sales in the third quarter of 2009. The year-on-year growth was 241.4 percent.

“Among our flagship products for 2009 is the HP Mini, which is dedicated to the entry level market segment,” Martin said.

He added that HP Mini would continue to be a mainstay in 2010, including a series that are specially designed by London-based product designer Tord Boontje.

Lim said the market would demand more innovation from PC vendors next year. He acknowledged that the strong netbook market in Indonesia might be losing ground to new products that have better performance.

“The next big thing for 2010 is laptops that are thin and light, with good performance and long battery life,” he told the Post.

In November, Acer launched the Ferrari One, which falls somewhere between the ultra-portable netbooks and the full-featured notebooks with a screen 11.6 inches wide, only 1.5 kilograms (kg) in weight and a dual core processor.
HP has also introduced a new line called the HP Envy. With a screen 13.1 inches wide, the laptop weighs only 1.69 kg and is equipped with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. (adh)