According to a Reuters report, Via Technologies is aiming to capture at least 15 percent of the netbook integrated chip (IC) global market share in 2009, which will be a repeat performance of last year.

"We had 15 percent of total netbook (chip) shipments last year and we hope we can at least maintain that level this year," said Epan Wu, Director – CPU Product Marketing Department, Via.

"There will be some more clients in the second half. This year's growth in netbooks will be much bigger than last year. It will be very good if we follow that growth."

The Reuters (News - Alert) report claims that Intel is a major force to reckon with for the other 85 percent of the market share and that its Atom chips form a critical part of mini notebooks that are sold in bulk for $300.

The report says that Via’s IC’s would be packaged with a new netbook PC product line that is being introduced in the second quarter of 2009 by a vendor who is providing this solution for the very first time, but refrains from disclosing the identity of the vendor.

TMCnet has reported that Verizon Wireless is introducing basic versions of netbooks for the first time in its history early next quarter. With this, competition from the more established AT&T in this market space will occur and therefore drive the demand for related IC’s and other components.

 

Verizon and AT&T (News - Alert) are projecting system costs to be no more than $100, a price that is an affordable compromise to costlier notebooks, laptops, desktops and some mobile communications and computing devices such as Smartphones. At the bare minimum its price advantage ratio is 1:2, and on the higher end it could even go as high as 1:10, depending on what other device the customer was planning to purchase. Another possibility that exists is people who were not even planning to buy, may now give serious consideration and be more inclined to own one.