2011 Netbook shipment will decline 18% YOY [DRAMeXchange]

[Idontcare]

2011 Netbook shipment will decline 18% YOY, primary growth depends on the emerging market

Netbook is being heavily cannibalized by tablet PC in the developed markets, especially in the area they co-worked with telecommunication carriers. As carriers are shifting their focus from Netbooks onto tablet PC, so does media exposure. DRAMeXchange indicates that 2011 Netbooks’ growth momentum will primarily rely on emerging market.

http://www.dramexchange.com/WeeklyResearch/Post/2/2590.html

I'm going to profess a bit of ignorance here regarding AMD's Brazos/Ontario platforms, but are they targeting the netbook marketspace (are they being released just in time to take over a dying market segment) or are they targeting the tablet and laptop market segments?

Also, I may be reading too much into the reasoning behind the fundamental market dynamics at play here, but is the performance of Atom the leading reason behind netbook's falling out of favor?

If so, and Brazos/Ontario offer a compelling performance proposition compared to Atom, then that should mean the forecasted netbook decline may be completely wrong as Brazos/Ontario netbooks may reinvigorate this market segment. Yes?

Thoughts?

 

[pyjujiop]

I don't think it has a lot to do with Atom's poor performance as much as it has to do with the fact that tablets are the "flavor of the month" now. Everybody is coming out with them, and everybody's marketing machine has cranked up to convince the public that they just have to have a tablet PC. (Nevermind that they were soundly rejected by the public when they first came out about 5-7 years ago, when they didn't have the machine hawking them non-stop.)

And of course, there's always a large enough segment of the public that follows the marketing machine like lemmings, and goes out and buys whatever the "hot new item" is. Netbooks are so 2008, you know.

 

[busydude]

Netbooks based on Brazos just started shipping.. AMD said they shipped something in excess of a million chips. Anyway, Brazos will definitely take a significant share in expense of ATOM based products. Will it reinvigorate the market? No, the reason Netbooks sales are declining is due to tablets and both AMD and Intel currently do not have any chips to cater that market.

I see AMD gaining some share in Netbook market at the expense of Intel, but I don't see it reinvigorating.

Also, based on my personal experience netbooks are not popular in the developing markets(which have the most growth potential) and I don't see them becoming popular.. Laptops are just gaining popularity there, and I guess they will pass netbooks and adopt tablets. When ever I talk to my friends/relatives in India, who BTW are tech savvy, they just don't seem to have any interest in Netbooks.. and as soon as I start taking about tablets their interest spikes.

In summary, tablets will cannibalize Netbooks and they continue to decline. OTOH, AMD will gain marketshare in netbook segment.

 

[Zap]

I think maybe it is because everyone in the world already owns several netbooks. :hmm:

No seriously though, anyone who wanted to own a netbook probably already has one, and except for ION or dual core versions, pretty much one netbook is identical to another, so there is no reason to side-grade. That is, except the AMD offerings look really juicy right now.

 

[Medu]

Netbook were designed to get people on the net at a low price but they are becoming less and less relevant. As people replace their dumb-phones with smart-phones the need for specialised device to get on the net has decreased.

 

[Arkadrel]

netbooks... meh... their the oddballs... stuck somewhere between a laptop and a tablet.

Even if the netbooks sales drop abit, There ll still be a market there, estimated ~8mil units pr quarter isnt that bad, has to be some money in selling those chips.

I dont see the idea of haveing a personal tablet, isnt it something thats mainly for certrain job types? dont see it ever really becomeing a common mans item, that everyone has. I can see that happending with laptops if they become strong enough to game on, and as more and more students start useing laptops as wealth rises in areas where they didnt nessarly have the means to buy themselfs laptops, before hand, say brazil or india, china ect, demand will probably rise in those areas of the world for such things as laptops.

 

[Wreckage]

A lot of "notebooks" are very close to "netbooks" these days. Combine that with the success of tablets and smart phones.... well this seems like no surprise.

I have recommended iPads to people after asking them just one question... do you do a lot of typing? If not they are great little devices.

 

[evident]

i still think netbooks are a complete scam for what you get with the money. doesn't make sense why anyone would pay full price($300-400ish is what's advertised for many netbooks) for one when there are CULV notebooks out.

 

[Zap]

i still think netbooks are a complete scam for what you get with the money. doesn't make sense why anyone would pay full price($300-400ish is what's advertised for many netbooks) for one when there are CULV notebooks out.

Netbooks started before the proliferation of cheap CULV notebooks.

Now that there are cheap CULV notebooks, netbooks can be found pretty regularly for $250.

For sheer battery run time, netbooks are still king, even if by merely 10-20% run time.

 

[Idontcare]

Hmmm...so does this mean AMD is showing up to the party with Bobcat too late then?

If the market segment has already matured (peaked) and is now in the first stages of decline, I mean who wants to be the market leader in a no-growth market where the TAM is projected to just decline from here out?

(I say this with both Intel and AMD in mind, how do they make the argument for continuing to fund R&D in development of Atom and Bobcat if the market segment is evaporating?)

Have the Brazos reviews come out yet? Are we talking about the same thing here or is Brazos powerful enough that it would be considered for CULV laptop segment?

 

[busydude]

Have the Brazos reviews come out yet?

Yes, they are out and seem to get positive response. AMD, in their conference call last week, said they shipped ~1 million Brazos based products or chips(can't recall exactly).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2133944

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2134214

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/amd_ships_over_1_million_fusion_apus_35_million_dx11_cards

 

[rudder]

i still think netbooks are a complete scam for what you get with the money. doesn't make sense why anyone would pay full price($300-400ish is what's advertised for many netbooks) for one when there are CULV notebooks out.

I bought a netbook a year and a half ago for $250. They are just so much more convenient to travel with. Looking on newegg you can see the bulk of netbooks are in the $200-$300 range.

 

[cotak13]

Take a bucket of salt. No one knows if their forecast are right. That's why people are going nuts over Jobs taking time off. Cause so far only he has been seemingly able to predict what consumer wants.

 

[OS]

i don't really understand either of these platforms, unless its just to have stuff


the tablets basically do the same thing as smartphones..and the netbook the same as an ultraportable notebook.



the netbook in particular, cost barely any less than many inexpensive notebooks, and aren't really that much lighter than ultraportables.

hell from a size/weight perspective the toshiba protege almost weighs the same as many netbooks while having waaayy more features.



now..if more netbooks were like sony x series, that would definitely have potential, except at netbook prices lol

 

[OBLAMA2009]

ive always thought that netbooks were dying because of poor performance. they are virtually unusable even though the form factor is quite convenient. intels refusal to speed them up has everything to do with why they are no longer selling. everyone has one and there is no compelling reason to go out and buy a new one that is just as bad as the one you already have. i dont think amds brazos will help this segment much, they are clocked at the same speed as intels and might have stability/battery life issues, so it doesnt seem to be much of an improvement

 

[Wreckage]

I think a quadcore tegra 3, might make for a truly perfect netbook -> performance + batter life + ultra portable.

 

[Zap]

Take a bucket of salt. No one knows if their forecast are right. That's why people are going nuts over Jobs taking time off. Cause so far only he has been seemingly able to predict what consumer wants.

Is it because he can predict what consumer wants, or is he just able to exploit niches with well made products?

ive always thought that netbooks were dying because of poor performance. they are virtually unusable even though the form factor is quite convenient... i dont think amds brazos will help this segment much, they are clocked at the same speed as intels and might have stability/battery life issues, so it doesnt seem to be much of an improvement

I think they will help. The problem I personally encountered with netbooks are:
1) I kept wishing for just a few more pixels than 1024x600.
2) Everything worked fine... until the random times that something chugged (HD video, some games).

AMD Zacate fixes these issues while roughly retaining the size/weight/cost. What's not to like?

 

[cotak13]

Is it because he can predict what consumer wants, or is he just able to exploit niches with well made products?

While the two are different the end result is the same no? So from the point of view of the market and profit does it matters?

 

[PreferLinux]

Os is it because he tells the customers what to want???

 

[cotak13]

Os is it because he tells the customers what to want???

Don't think so. I mean think from the perspective of the iphone. It's hugely successful and when it came out it was very different from every smart phone that came before it. Thing about the design choices such as having the app store, touch screen that doesn't require you to use a damn stylus, not having a physical keyboard. All those choices made the iphone successful. The app store for sure made it took off. And blackberry dominated "smart phones" before the iphone so if you don't predict what works for consumers you'd have gone ahead and tried to stuff a keyboard into the phone as well. Which while making certain things easier wouldn't have made the phone the success it is. There was a lot of things right with the iphone that made it a hit even though it was lacking in other areas.

So no I don't think he tells people what they want. He and his staff at apple are just very good at judging what matters and what doesn't to average joe and jane consumer.

Personally though, I am not sure the tablet market is as great as the hypes suggests. So far I have only seen people using the ipad in the wild and a lot fewer than iphones or android phones. From my personal point of view I just can't fully justify another expense which is in the half way point between phone size portable and laptop with a keyboard. Just don't find any use for a tablet right now.

 

[Idontcare]

Take a bucket of salt. No one knows if their forecast are right. That's why people are going nuts over Jobs taking time off. Cause so far only he has been seemingly able to predict what consumer wants.

DRAMeXchange has an impressive forecasting accuracy in my experience, they nailed both the DRAM and NAND supply/demand cycles of late. This ain't your typical iSuppli or worse (TheINQ, shudders) type of forecasting or speculation.

These guys are tied in with the guys who know exactly how much capacity they are building right now to be able to support the market in the coming year, if the capacity is being built with expectation of an 18% YoY decline then you can count on there not being a 10% YoY increase because the factory capacity simply won't exist.

That aside, what I am trying to decipher from the tea leaves is what this means, or doesn't, for Intel and AMD in their respective Atom and Bobcat projects.

And I agree with the other folks commenting on netbook's value proposition (and lack thereof). When I went shopping for a netbook I opted instead to buy one of those cheap 15" DELL laptops for $500...seemed silly to spend $300 and only get myself ~1/5 the performance and 1/2 the LCD screen area. (but I did not need 10hr battery life, I admit)

 

[exar333]

Most tablets are junk these days anyways; the iPad is essentially a big mobile phone minus the talk features. When cheaper tablets, with good screens, have the ability to run a real O/S and use real programs then I will be interested. There are tablets like this now, but they are $$$.

 

[Wreckage]

Hmmm...so does this mean AMD is showing up to the party with Bobcat too late then?

Ask Dirk.

While I don't think the Netbook market is going away. It's growth is shot and will probably slowly decline until it finds its niche. While smart phones/tablets/ultra portable laptops will grow partially by eating netbook's lunch.

Could Bobcat be used in a Tablet/notebook and be competitive? Otherwise, yeah they missed the boat. Atom had a good run as it was out at the right time, but even those devices are starting to fade.

 

[cbn]

I'm going to profess a bit of ignorance here regarding AMD's Brazos/Ontario platforms, but are they targeting the netbook marketspace (are they being released just in time to take over a dying market segment) or are they targeting the tablet and laptop market segments?

Also, I may be reading too much into the reasoning behind the fundamental market dynamics at play here, but is the performance of Atom the leading reason behind netbook's falling out of favor?

If so, and Brazos/Ontario offer a compelling performance proposition compared to Atom, then that should mean the forecasted netbook decline may be completely wrong as Brazos/Ontario netbooks may reinvigorate this market segment. Yes?

Thoughts?

I've only see one Brazos Tablet, the acer Iconia here

According to today's Digitimes News Blog, some of the smaller netbook manufacturers are stepping out of the netbook market. (possibly to seize opportunity created by the new Tablet market?)

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110124PD221.html

Big vendors become even bigger in netbook market

Yenting Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 25 January 2011]

First-tier netbook players such as Acer, Samsung Electronics, Asustek Computer, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba are expected to become even bigger as second-tier players are gradually stepping out of the industry, according to sources from notebook makers.

Despite Apple's iPad having a significant impact on the netbook market, strong sales in emerging markets still helped first-tier players to maintain a rather well shipment performance in 2010.

Since Acer, Asustek and HP are still developing netbooks in 2011, plus upstream component makers still have concerns about tablet PCs, if the tablet PC's sales did not perform as strong as expected after launch in the second quarter, netbook sales are expected to have chance to rebound and benefit the first-tier players, the sources believe.

However, since tablet PC vendors are also adopting 10.1-inch panel for their devices, small- to medium-size panel capacity is expected to see tight supply in the near future, the sources noted.

Interestingly, it sounds like the bottleneck to production on both devices may be the 10.1" LCD screens. It just makes me wonder which device will win economically? Bobcat + expensive Windows OS vs ARM Cortex A9 + Free Android Honeycomb OS?

I'll bet many people will find Bobcat APU netbook devices especially useful, but then I ask my self the question "How much more room do the Tablet makers have to lower their prices in response?" (At the moment it seems to me Slate prices are somewhat high due to the fact they are trendy, not because they are expensive to build)

 

[cbn]

i dont think amds brazos will help this segment much, they are clocked at the same speed as intels

The clock speeds may be the same, but The IPC is around 50% better for Bobcat. (Bobcat doesn't have hyperthreading though)