Ready To Rumble: Acer, Asus Eye Bigger Netbooks

Computer makers Acer and Asus, two players in the rapidly growing netbook market, are looking to capture customer dollars that are pouring into netbooks. But now the two manufacturers are taking the fight to new ground.

Early last month, Acer lifted the curtain on more than 20 new products across all of its brands, including Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines. Included in the products were two new netbooks, an update to the Acer Aspire One netbook and Gateway LT30.

Both of the machines are looking to drive the netbook market by expanding the size of the machines to 11.6 inches, up from 10.1 inches, which had become a sort of de facto standard in the space.

Meanwhile, the DigiTimes reports that Asus also is planning to launch an 11.6-inch Eee PC later this month.

According to the report, Asus President Jerry Shen considers the 10.1-inch netbook the "mainstream specification" for this year. Shen also believes that while 10.1-inch netbooks will account for 50 percent of his company's total shipments in 2009, the 11.6-inch Eee PC will account for 30 percent of the company's shipments.

The 10.1-inch Eee PC is a known entity for Asus. But presenting customers with a brand new netbook with a bigger form factor and announcing it will garner 30 percent of the company's shipments seems like a bold move, to say the least.

Still, Asus may be feeling pressure to keep up with Acer, which is clearly trying to make a move in the netbook space. On April 9, J.T. Wang, chairman of Acer, said there were plans to ship 10 million netbooks in 2009.

Just 20 days later, Wang predicted that the netbook market will hit about 50 million units in 2010, with Acer's market share being between 40 to 50 percent.

Whether or not this market segment is big enough for both of these companies remains to be seen. However, it looks as if the game of follow the leader that is happening in the netbook category will continue.