Acer, HP, Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are all known primarily as PC makers. Samsung? Not so much. The company makes consumer electronics ranging from televisions and Blu-ray players to smartphones. But Samsung also makes some of the most popular mini-laptops around, and according to DigiTimes, Samsung is poised to become the number 2 netbook vendor in Europe soon.
During the first half of 2009, Samsung shipped 2.15 million netbooks, and a million of those went to Europe. DigiTimes’ sources say during the third quarter of 2009, Samsung could step up its game and take the number two spot, which means it would leap over HP and Asus, while trailing only Acer.
That’s in Europe anyway, where Samsung is selling netbooks both directly to consumers and in partnership with wireless carriers that bundle netbooks with 3G service plans.
Samsung has also been rapidly growing its netbook and mini-laptop lineup. The company is currently offering a variety of 10 inch models including the N110, N120, N140, and N310 as well as 11 to 12 inch models including the Samsung NC20 and N510.
Imo a lot of this is due to Samsung’s revised standing in the European market. Back in the 80s they were a by-word for cheap, nasty electronics, mainly sold in supermarkets and low end, independent electrical stores for ridiculous markups.
In the last ten years though this has changed, infact completely reversed. Their phones, TVs, hard discs, camera, printers – wherever you go in Europe you will rarely see their really budget products, it’s just average stuff/below average prices and above average stuff/average prices – which has always been the key to European middle class markets.
Same goes for the netbook space. They stayed away while Asus we’re pumping out rubbish like the eee 700/900, poor desktop parts pushed into uneconomical, poorly conceived laptops. Instead they waited until the Atom market had matured and dropped the NC10 – an absolute marketing masterpiece which, while hardly the Holy Grail, beat everyone one of it’s competitors in some way for the same price.
And so it’s gone with their follow ups, they’re all average/above average for the market space and priced well (after their initial two month markup anyways).
They know how to play Europe from both marketing and technical angles in ways neither Asus or Acer ever have and as long as they stick to the current formula it’ll only get better.