Despite an uncertain economic outlook for 2009, global notebook shipments from the top five notebook vendors – Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer, Dell, Toshiba and Asustek Computer – are expected to reach close to 130 million units in 2009, according to market sources.

According to the sources, the 2009 notebook shipment goal of HP, Acer and Dell are 40 million units, 30 million units and 22 million units, respectively, while Toshiba is estimated to forecast shipments of 20 million units in 2009, based on strong outsourcing orders to Inventec.

Asustek has set a notebook shipment goal and Eee PC shipment goal of 7.5-8 million units for each segment, so the companys annual shipment could hit 15-16 million units in 2009, the market sources noted.

Source: Digitimes