Stefan Mileschin

After a long series of quarters in the doldrums, it seems that sales of notebooks will be boosted in the second quarter.

But although that might be generally considered good news, it seems that it’s not the traditional notebook market that will surge, but sales of Apple machines and Chromebook notebooks.

That’s according to a survey by Digitimes Research, which estimates that notebooks will grow by 11 percent sequentially in the second quarter – still down by 1.2 percent year on year, but better than the 4.7 percent decline in an earlier period.

The market research company said shipments from Apple and sales of Chromebooks will represent as much as 50 percent – with Macbooks showing 40 percent sequential growth and 50 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Chromebooks will grow by 60 percent sequentially.

Sales of bog standard X86 notebooks will be down 8.7 percent quarter and quarter, year on year.

Digitimes Research estimates Apple will ship five million machines in the period, edging Dell out of third place. The number one player worldwide will be Lenovo.

http://www.techeye.net/laptops-2/som...s-set-to-surge