I'd like to know how many people own laptop computers in the United
States.  I'm trying to do research on a product for people who are
laptop users who are on the road, and I'd like to know the total
number of possible customers.  More specifically, if you can find out
how many business travellers use laptops, that would be great!

Also, how many laptops are sold per year.  Is this increasing against
the number of desktops?

Any useful links would be fantastic!

Hello,

According to the 2001 Statistical Abstract of the United States of
America:

In 1998, 11 different companies shipped a total of 190,000 "Laptops
(AC/DC)" for a total value of $538 million.

In the same year, 14 different companies shipped a total of 2,470,000
"Notebooks/subnotebooks (battery powered)" for a total value of $5.81
billion.

In the same year, 4 different companies shipped a total of 69,000
"Personal Digital Assistants" for a total value of $48 million.

In the same year, 6 different companies shipped a total of 223,000
"Other portable computers" for a total value of $163 million.

This information can be found at the URL:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/01statab/manufact.pdf Table #1003

I'm sure you could estimate the total number of people who own laptops
by estimating an exponential equation or a simple curve of laptop
purchases, and then fitting this number to the curve to estimate total
numbers.

I hope this helps!  Let me know if you need anything else,

Danny Delany

Automator,

I found the following on
http://www.gsmdata.com/es53060/sriconsult.htm.  I hope it is useful to
you.  SRI's full reports are of course like Gartner and Datamonitor
expensive to access.  Sometimes snippets such as this one give a
reasonable clue but not much context.


-Notebooks are expected to dominate the wireless data market segment.
From report by SRI Consulting: Software for Mobile Communications
Devices.

"The installed base is huge—80 million, growing to 250 million in 2003
(versus just 12.5 million PDAs)."  Relating to the use of wireless in
notebooks vs. PDAs

-felipe

A couple more articles for some perspective

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-251674.html?legacy=cnet 
From Jan 2001 discussing the growth of notebooks over desktops.

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16698.html
March 2002 discussing impact of P4 mobile on notebook sales.

-felipe