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Netbooks to become 15-20 percent cheaper |
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Written by Peter Scott
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Wednesday, 14 January 2009 11:34 |
Compared to mid-2008
According to IDC bean counters, netbook manufacturing costs in 2009 should drop by 15 to 20 percent compared to mid-2008.
IDC believes panel prices will drop by around 30 percent, while the price Intel's Atom platform which powers the vast majority of these gadgets should drop by 50 percent compared to mid-2008.
Apart from these price drops, a trio of storage companies has joined forces to develop a series of cheaper hard drives which are projected to be around 30 percent cheaper than current 2.5-inch units. Memory prices are also dropping, so the cost of solid state drives should also drop.
AMD has recently announced its Neo platform for thin and light notebooks, which will put more pressure on netbook vendors and Atom based models, although it's planned for slightly larger units.
Also, the netbook market in mid-2008 was in its infancy, and vendors used the opportunity to jack up margins on their products. There's a lot more competition now, and the fact that Freescale, VIA and AMD are entering the market promises there will be plenty more in upcoming months.
More here.
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