Gartner has just named 2009 as “The Year of Mini-Notebook” in the Asia Pacific region.  Of course we don’t have to tell you that mini-notebook refers to our beloved little machines most commonly known as the netbook.  We’re not really sure why Gartner did not use the term netbook. Maybe they are afraid to get some court injuction or any other forms of legal complaints.

Gartner also mentioned that Australia will be at the forefront of the Asia Pacific region which received tremendous increase in netbook sales. Gartner said that one out of 10 laptops sold in Australia is a netbook. This is led to a 40.8% increase in sales of netbooks in the country.  With this sales trend, by 2009, netbooks will comprised 13.7% of all laptops in Australia.

Lillian Tay, Gartner principal research analyst said:

“The mini-notebook is a great tool for casual and entry-level computing, especially among younger users who are obsessed with social networking sites such as Facebook.”

Ms. Tay also enumerated some of the factors which cause the rise of netbooks sales into better mobile broadband services, various netbook options and lower cost of netbook.

via News Australia