First-tier notebook brands have recently started digesting their Calpella- and Montevina-based notebook inventory, selling them mainly to emerging markets such as Latin America, Southeast Asia and China with entry-level prices, according to sources at notebook players.

First-tier brands including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer and Lenovo have been aggressively developing their lineups in emerging market channels to expand their global market share and these brands are also dumping all their inventory that they cannot sell smoothly in mature market in order to quickly clean out such burdens.

However, this strategy is damaging the competitiveness of second-tier and regional brands, which focus mainly focus on emerging markets. The second-tier vendors are concerned that after Intel launches its Huron River platform in the first quarter of 2011, the first-tier vendors' action of dumping notebook inventory into emerging markets will become even fiercer.

Some sources believe that the smaller regional brands will gradually quit the market in the next 1-2 years, while regional brands that have a larger scale will need to find other ways to minimize the impact.