According to Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, first time buyers no longer find Netbooks appealing.
“I don’t think first-time buyers are going to buy netbooks,” said Intel’s executive vice president Sean Maloney said at a media event on Wednesday.
“The first time you buy something you want the real deal. It’s consistent not just in China, but all around the world.”
“If you’re going to spend your hard-earned money for the first time, you’re going to put a computer in your house,” he said.
For those that still don’t really know the difference between a Netbook and a Laptop apart from size, Netbooks are primarily used for content consumption whereas laptops are used for content creation.
In other words Netbooks can be used for accessing the web, emails and basic computing tasks whereas laptops have the same functionality as a desktop computer.
We know that Netbook sales have been rising dramatically ever since these low-cost ultra portable devices first arrived on the scene a couple of years ago and are now the fastest growing segment of the computer industry worldwide.
The question is who is actually buying these Netbooks and why?
What we’ve heard is that first time buyers, students, kids, women, those in emerging markets, those on low incomes and those that want a secondary device to take with them on the road.
In other words all sorts of people from all walks of life are buying Netbooks for many different reasons, mostly because they’re cheap and cheerful, easy to use, light enough to carry around and convenient for the net.
It is also well known that Intel would like to see people buying CULV or Consumer Ultra Low Voltage machines instead of Netbooks.
These are a new class of ultra thin portable Notebooks that lie somewhere between a Netbook and a Laptop and according to Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini; they will give consumers what they are missing in Netbooks.
“I think the usage models are really differentiating between notebooks and netbooks and that will be even more clear when the new ultra-thins are out there because now if you want a thin and light notebook, you don’t have to just pick a netbook. You can pick an affordable notebook that has more functionality” said Otellini.
Hey if there’s one thing we’ve all learned about Netbooks in the short time they’ve been around it’s that so far, no matter what anyone has said to try and bring them down, they just keep on selling anyway.
