Netbooks doomed: By 2015, netbooks will fade into obscurity due to the proliferation of tablet computers, a new report said.
Citing an IHS iSuppli report, the Los Angeles Times said netbooks, which are smaller and have less power and features than a normal laptop, will die out in two years.
The decline, the report said, has already started.
Recent figures show that there will be an estimated 3.97 million shipments of netbooks by the end of this year, representing a 72 percent decline from 2012 when 14.43 million units were shipped.
In 2010--the same year Apple’s iPad came out--there were more than 32 million netbooks shipped, the report said.
Citing the same report, Maximum PC said that only 264,000 netbooks shipped next year. And in 2015, shipments will dwindle down to virtually nothing.
“From the supply end of production, the major original equipment manufacturers of notebooks will have already terminated netbook production at this point. Whatever production is left is expected to be limited, or manufacturers will simply be shipping last-time builds to satisfy contractual obligations to customers,” wrote iSuppli, according to ZDNet.
Craig Stice of iSuppli noted that netbooks “shot to popularity immediately after launch because they were optimized for low cost, delivering what many consumers believed as acceptable computer performance,” according to the Times.
But, with the advent of the iPad, “netbooks began their descent to oblivion with the introduction in 2010 of Apple’s iPad,” he said
