Acer takes the "most netbooks sold" crown from ASUS

The hotter-than-ever netbook market -- which has seemingly been headed Acer's way for a while now -- has seen its numbers for the third quarter of 2008 arrive, and the Aspire One has indeed overtaken ASUS Eee PC as top dog in units moved. Acer's captured 38.3 percent of the market share, selling 2.15 million netbooks, while ASUS sold about 1.7 million, or 30.3 percent. Possibly adding insult to injury, we hear that an XP-loaded Aspire One can be yours for $299 today at Best Buy. We doubt ASUS will be taking its toys and going home any time soon, but we might've heard a few sniffles coming from its corner during recess.

[Via Laptop]

Read - Best Buy
Read - Strong netbook shipments buoy notebook PC market in Q3 '08

[Patriks7 @ Dec 9th 2008 2:08AM]

Impressive, taking into account Acer has like 2 models and Asus has like 20..

[Zuwxiv @ Dec 9th 2008 2:13AM]

Perhaps that's an advantage rather than an obstacle.

[1234321 @ Dec 9th 2008 2:34AM]

yeah but I'm surprised, it was Acer and not MSI, at least they had a nice looking product with loads of features
maybe MSI will pick up steam now that the units are more available, and more aggressively priced

not to mention iEye will be happy to know it is one of the better notebooks to run OS X on

[Patriks7 @ Dec 9th 2008 11:59AM]

@Zuwxiv
True that.. Completely forgot about that.. After Apple has only 4 laptop models, yet they seem to be doing fairly well..

[dave @ Dec 9th 2008 2:10AM]

It might also help that Walmart sells the Aspire One and it is the cheapest computer they sell (other than the Barbie one).

[protozoider @ Dec 9th 2008 9:26AM]

Very true. I just played with one at walmart the other day. It sold me on it, not literally though. I played with 2 eeepc models at Best Buy, they felt really cheap. The Acer feels solid and well made, and even the keys and touchpad feel like a normal laptop just smaller. They are cheaper too. I still haven't bought one though. I'm waiting to see what the next line of Winds look like for specs before I settle.

[Deeznuts420 @ Dec 9th 2008 12:57PM]

but u cant make spreadsheets AND create outfits with the acer can you? CAN YOU!?

[SubGenius @ Dec 9th 2008 2:49AM]

I wonder how much longer Apple can afford to stay out of the sub-notebook market?
According to the article sub-notebook sales increased 160% in the last quarter.
Acer shipped 2.15 million sub-notebooks
Asus shipped 1.7 million sub-notebooks
meanwhile
Apple shipped 1.68 million notebooks

[Hamidxa @ Dec 9th 2008 6:00AM]

And their trailing at 7th in terms of marketshare, and experienced less Y/Y growth than at least 5 other major PC vendors.

This isn't a new trend however, but their Y/Y growth figures have dropped, as people have perhaps realized that paying 50% more for 50% less is ...how shall we say, rather absurd -- to put it lightly.

[W Park @ Dec 9th 2008 3:01AM]

Have an Acer Aspire One in midnight blue with 6 cell battery. Love it as long as I use it as a souped up Psion netbook/series 5 rather than a laptop replacement. Am debating on going Linux. Very portable and fun for blogging, casual writing. No good for serious graphical work. XP a drag, but tolerable. 160 g harddrive excellent. With iTunes, the One is a decent large screen iPod. Battery good for 5-7 hrs. What's not to like?

[ajmalzx @ Dec 9th 2008 3:11AM]

I 2nd that, XP is both a plus and drag. I only install 2 apps on it though, itunes and Office2003. So quicker than my 1 year old 15" celeron notebook. As long as you dont treat it like a laptop, it's more that you'll ever need.

[Ed T @ Dec 9th 2008 11:15AM]

I have the same model and plan to sell it. The noisy fan, flaky wifi (may be XP's fault), and annoying trackpad & buttons wear you down after a while. It is light with good battery life, but the rest is just so-so.

[digitallysick @ Dec 9th 2008 3:04AM]

I agree Asus diluted the Eee pc brand with far to many models. It wasn't needed

[Cory @ Dec 9th 2008 1:48PM]

Except that's nothing to do with why ASUS isn't ahead. It's pretty darn impressive they got the sales they did without the retail advantage Acer has. Also, the general public is more familiar with the name Acer.

[lpppppl @ Dec 9th 2008 3:08AM]

ASUS: owned.

Wasn't ASUS the pioneer, if not first, to tackle the amazing $300 price point?

[Jeff @ Dec 9th 2008 8:13AM]

Yes, but the point is, Acer is even more owned. (ba dink dink)

[Brie @ Dec 9th 2008 3:23AM]

Asus has become the Dugger family of netbooks, I love a great idea/product but 17 of nearly the same idea/product? Wear a condom Asus focus on a couple great products and not thin your affections out on 17, they will grow up to thank you.

[Michael Scrip @ Dec 9th 2008 3:46AM]

I don't like the Duggar family.

[Richard Lai @ Dec 9th 2008 9:06AM]

@Brie: I totally agree with (and LOL'd at) your condom comment. Asus' marketing method highly contrasts Apple's simply product range, which would be the better way for the netbook market, as well as saving R&D costs (or focus them on more revolutionary designs) but perhaps they can afford to do so with their own manufacturing facilities.

[Jash Sayani @ Dec 9th 2008 3:41AM]

Unbelievable !!

ASUS has tons of netbook models for all types of users. S101 for Style, 1000H for performance and 1002HA for both.... And also the cheap Surfer netbooks....
It also had great amount of sales worldwide..

Surprising to see Acer take over!

[sebconn @ Dec 9th 2008 4:03AM]

Acer pushed these things very aggressively in schools in Australia, not sure about the rest of the world but it would have been a significant booster for them.

[PJD @ Dec 9th 2008 5:55AM]

I am a bit disapointed in the customers: One of the only netbooks with a glossy screen is the winner. I oped that non-glosy screens get more popular again with all the non-glossy netbooks...

But on the other hand you get the acer for 1€ with a 2-year 40€ data-contract over here from t-mobile what isnt bad - you could get chaeper with o2 (25€ without a device) but their network is not as good for travellers...

[Hamidxa @ Dec 9th 2008 5:57AM]

Hah!

Apple is once again 7th (tied with Sony) in terms of overall marketshare in the notebook sector.

Furthermore, their year to year overall notebook growth is at 24%, which is behind the curve compared to growths experienced by:
HP
Acer
Dell
Toshiba
Asus

Suck on that Apple fanboys, suck on that!

[Adderz @ Dec 9th 2008 8:30AM]

I dont get it, Apple doesnt even have a netbook so why are we talking about Apple?

Apple dont have a netbook because the market for them hasnt matured, and netbooks dont fit Apples image. They also have low profit margins, and those margins are getting slimmer each day.

You might also like to know, that market share means nothing to Apple, otherwise they would of released OSX to pc manufacturers. They also would of plugged all the gaping holes in their product lines with netbooks, headless cheap macs and everything in between.

Compare how much profit HP or Dell make per machine....

[Crayola @ Dec 9th 2008 8:11AM]

Thank you my dear american friends! I prey to mr bojangles everyday that you will continue to buy our stuff so we can save more of our profits and lend it back to you to buy more stuff! Thank you america, love! xxx

[Skazer @ Dec 9th 2008 8:13AM]

Oh god, this talk about brand dilution again. I find it funny how people are assuming this happened because Asus had so many netbook models to choose from. Are you kidding me?? That was an advantage for Asus more than anything else. I had several friends who were looking for netbooks and they chose the Aspire1 because it was the best bang for the buck (in Canada at least). That's it. You're going to sell more when you're cheaper than the competition.

[brie @ Dec 9th 2008 9:37AM]

I have to partially agree with skazer. I made a comparison between Asus and the Duggar family due to the amount of product Asus had within their netbook line but the sudden development of a faster low power chip created a whole new netbook scenario and Asus who already had a full line out had to keep up with the new hardware and this meant another line of netbooks. I believe there are basically two parts to this. First Asus jumped out of the gate to hit consumers first. Secondly there became available new improved hardware that their competitors were going to take advantage of and basically upped the ante in netbooks. Asus countered the only way they could and that was to come out with more products that could compete. By then the Asus brand was saturating the market in turn I believe consumers found other brands refreshing and newer.
So I believe its a combination of everything we have brought up in this topic.

[Nick @ Dec 9th 2008 9:50AM]

Come on price war!

[shnugi @ Dec 9th 2008 10:18AM]

I think that it helps that Acer has a more developed and expansive supply chain compared to Asus. Plus, Asus hasn't done a good job at getting their better models out to the brick and mortar stores that do carry their products. I was at Target and all I saw were eee surfs with celeron processors, who would want that over a standard Aspire One?

[bethel03 @ Dec 9th 2008 10:56AM]

Amazon has just dropped the price to 379 for the XP, 160GB, 6-cell version. Not too bad...getting closer and closer to a price where it will get me sold...

I have read reviews on almost all the netbooks and the Acer is always at the top, I will getting the Acer or Samsung based on reviews and ratings.

[captricky @ Jan 3rd 2009 2:21AM]

Cheaper still at PC Connection. $369

[KSmithInNY @ Dec 9th 2008 11:39AM]

The link provided to Best Buy still shows the Aspire One as $349.99 ...... ???? I have been looking for a netbook and $300 for the Aspire One is a great deal.

[PA @ Dec 9th 2008 5:12PM]

But remember this, with Linux inside : no antivirus, no firewall, great software bundle and a longer battery life, around 2:30 for Windows, 3:20 with Linux.

[zumba345 @ Dec 9th 2008 6:23PM]

But, if you take into account the storage on both of these. The Asus EeePc has a SSD (solid state drive) ones that are used in all flash drive. These drives are very durable and can withstand a lot of beating. I have dropped my Eee about 3 times on tile floors from standing up. It still works like a charm. However, I barely shook the hard drive of my brother's Acer Aspire One and the hard drive got scratched inside and now won't work. *All instances were while the computer was in use with word processing and internet. The SSD drives are more expensive than the hard drives in these netbooks which is understandable, but would you rather have security of hard drive or hard drive space? Unless you are into music, videos, graphic designs, then I would recommend the hard drive of Aspire One, But if you're like me and would rather have your files safe and a lesser chance of hard drive failure, then go with the EeePc.

By the way, I'm currently typing this on my EeePc and it as worked wonders for me for 9 months now. Mine came with Linux but I loaded XP on it and it works just as fast as my desktop XP. I have since replaced my desktop with this netbook and hook up monitor, mouse and keyboard when at home for easier mouse usage, and unhook everything for transport.

I personally recommend the EeePc because I am using it and find it work easier than the Acer that my brother has.

Downside of Acer Aspire One. Notebooks are used to having their mouse buttons on the bottom of the touchpad...I understand that it may take up space, but the EeePc 701 that I have still makes room for it and is still very easy to use with enough space for keyboard. What is up with the keys on the right and left side of the touchpad? New design, but flawed because when you go back to using a regular laptop, then you end up having to readjust to the mouse (keyboard as well because of size) but the mouse buttons having to adjust is a hassle.

[David @ Dec 9th 2008 7:18PM]

No wonder acer sold the most UMPCs, considering that Aspire One uses cheap crappy materials, that phail you. For the same specs (more or less) you get an EEE for maybe 30% more, but it alteast doesn't break down and melt like those shitty acers.
I already owned 2 acer laptops and they both overheated. The first one actually melted its casing, because the graphics card was overloaded and the ghaphics fan failed.

So, F*CK YOU ACER and Hello, Asus!

[Rotaryfan @ Dec 9th 2008 8:58PM]

What they don't tell you is that it is probably the most returned netbook also. slow ssd, linux, crappy touchpad, too small screen, it isn't great. I'm writing this from my new mini 1000, which I highly recommend, although maybe wait for the 6 cell to come out.