Via's Nano U225 CPUs will soon find themselves being inserted in the upcoming Samsung NC20. The netbook, due sometime in the next month, will be the only 12-inch unit available following Dell's cancellation of its similarly sized Inspiron Mini. That's good news to Via, who plans to ship around 200,000 Nano U225 CPUs to Samsung, and also to the latter as they have been trying to get a foothold in the crowded netbook market for a while.
With the number of CPUs Samsung is purchasing specifically for the NC20, it seems that the company is expecting their netbook market share to grow quite rapidly. To put it into perspective, 200,000 units would represent nearly 10% of the entire netbook market last year. Certainly that figure will only grow in 2009 but Samsung is still counting with the NC20 to do well. This also serves as a much needed boon to Via, which must contend with the Atom and even the Celeron, but can it be taken as a sign of a stronger year to come for the company in the netbook segment?