It was hard to predict back in 2007 that netbooks would gain so much ground so quickly, but they did. Demand for these low cost systems saw tremendous growth last year and Acer expects that growth to continue on a large scale, believing that more than 50 million netbooks will be shipped in 2010, out of 200 million total notebooks.
Obviously they expect to be a big part of that. The company has already set its sights on becoming the largest netbook manufacturer in the world this year, hoping to grab anything from 40 to 50 percent of the pie out of an estimated 25 to 30 million units to ship in 2009, according to current forecasts. To put that into perspective, Acer says it sold about 6 million netbooks in 2008.
Furthermore, Acer believes the decline in market demand brought on by the economic downturn will end by the middle of this year and that the IT industry will see better performance in the second half. Are the company's hopes too high? Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see them take a significant portion of the market, but taking half of it while competing with so many diverse players will not be easy.