According to recent studies Netbook sales were booming this year.

A dramatic increase in the size of the mini-note (netbook) market has increased the overall size of the portable PC market.

According to research company DisplaySearch The low prices of netbooks make these products attractive to buyers seeking a secondary PC for the home, as well as making them more affordable for first-time PC buyers in emerging markets, who are less likely to require all the features available on a larger mainstream notebook PC.

"Mini-notes continue to be a significant piece of the notebook PC pie, in terms of both units and revenue. However, our long-term outlook is that the mini-note share of the notebook PC market has stabilized, and will remain at approximately 20% through 2011 before starting to erode. While mini-notes offer lower ASPs and are thinner and lighter than notebook PCs, the performance of larger notebook PCs continues to improve while prices continue to steadily decline, increasing the performance gap while narrowing the price gap." said John F. Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research.

In 2010, DisplaySearch expects the notebook PC market to grow by 16%, with higher than average growth for mini-notes and ultra-portable notebook PCs.

Another recent study shows that Linux owns 32 percent of the netbook market.

You can read the full report here.