Research firm IDC says that 30% of “consumer portable” computer sold in the EMEA region in the fourth quarter of 2008 were mini-laptops. EMEA covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Overall, 3.6 million netbooks were sold in the region, accounting for 20% of overall notebook sales and an even higher percentage of consumer oriented devices.

4 out of 5 of those netbooks were sold in western Europe, where sales have been helped along by mobile carriers offering subsidized netbooks to customers who sign up for long term wireless broadband plans.

Acer and Asus are selling more netbooks in the region than all the other laptop makers combined. Acer has just over 30% of the market, while Asus has a 28% market share. THe next closest competitor is HP, which shipped 253,000 units to obtain 7% of the market share.