Netbook boom to decline with economic recovery

The last few months of economic turmoil has given rise to the netbook – cheap, stripped-down laptops that are mostly used for surfing the web and editing office documents.

But a computer analyst says that when the economy recovers, this computing trend will decline and consumers will switch back towards more expensive, powerful systems.

Analysis firm iSuppli says that netbook shipments rose 2424% last year and 68.5% this year so far, but one of the firm’s analysts, Matthew Wilkins, said in a statement that the growth won’t last long.

“People are not buying netbooks because they are truly desirable platforms, but rather because as low-cost PCs they offer a good mix of features at an acceptable price point,” he said.

“With financial motivation a key factor in many netbook sales, growth of the netbook platform is likely to slow down when the economy comes back and consumers have more money in their pockets.”

Wilkins says that netbook shipment growth will slow to 39.6% after this year until 2013 when growth is expected to drop to just 13.1%.

“While netbook capabilities and performance will inexorably rise in the coming years, the more powerful they become, the more threatening they become to regular notebook models – through comparable performance but lower price,” Wilkins said.