NetbookTech

IDC is out with some interesting numbers regarding PC shipments and in particular netbook shipments for the year as well as their impact on the overall mobile PC market. First off, some bad news (somewhat) – worldwide PC shipments fell 6.8 percent for the first quarter of this year. Yes that’s bad but it’s also about 1.4% better than previously expected so there’s some good news in there.. right?

What’s going on with  netbooks? As predicted, netbooks are a hot seller with 5.7 million units shipped during the first quarter of 2009. However, IDC claims this number resulted in a reduction of 3.1 million traditional notebooks compared to a year ago.

Those are pure shipment numbers of course – the actual values are even more telling. The shipment of the netbook/mini-notebook PCs was valued at $2.2 billion dollars while the value of traditional notebook shipments declined by approximately $8.4 billion dollars from a year ago. Not surprising when you consider a $300 dollar netbook is probably displacing a purchase of a $700+ notebook system.

Going forward, IDC expects netbook shipments to slow as netbook pricing increases with newer models coming out as well as increased competition from low-cost, thin and light systems based on Intel CULV and AMD Congo processors.

IDC does predict that mini-notebooks will grow to 9.5% of the total PC shipment market (17.3% of total mobile market) this year which will help drive shipment value down by a whopping 17.7%.

Read more over at IDC