Netbooks Beginning to Pass Up Notebooks in Sales

The wild popularity of netbooks comes as a double-edged sword for Intel and OEMs alike. On one hand, the worldwide PC market continues to grow on the strength of netbooks, most of which sport an Intel Atom chip inside. But on the other hand, it's long been feared that netbooks would cannibalize traditional notebook sales with higher profit margins, and at least one firm says it's already happening.

According to DisplaySearch, netbook shipments will reach 33 million units in 2009, penetrating into existing notebooks by 20 percent.

"Penetration of mini-notes is one of the primary factors behind DisplaySearch’s expectations of flat Y/Y demand for notebook PCs. The other factor is a dramatic reduction in demand from enterprise customers," DisplaySearch said in a press release.

As has been talked about before, DisplaySearch said that the launch of Windows 7 in late October, if combined with economic recovery, could turn things around and lead to a "rapid recovery" in the enterprise notebook market. However, the market firm also said it doesn't anticipate this happening until sometime in 2010.