Netbook shipments for the year should double to 22 million in 2009 compared to last year, taking a larger share of PC shipments as the year goes on. Shipments should pick up during the back-to-school season in the third quarter, and possibly jump in the fourth-quarter holiday season.

However, shipments may record slower incremental growth starting in 2010 as netbooks become a mainstay of the PC market, Chou said.

Chou couldn't provide exact market-share numbers for each vendor for the first quarter of 2009, but he didn't expect a change in rankings from the fourth quarter. Acer was the top netbook vendor during the fourth quarter with a 32 percent market share, followed by Asustek, with a 26 percent market share. Following Asustek were Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Samsung.

Acer President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci recently said the company expects to ship between 10 million and 12 million netbooks during 2009. It shipped just over 5 million netbooks in 2008.

Due to seasonal reasons, shipments fell sequentially from the 6.2 million netbooks shipped in the fourth quarter of 2008. Buying activity is higher in the fourth quarter because of the holiday season. Purchases slowed down after the holiday season ended, affecting netbook shipments during the first quarter of 2009.