Netbook market share is likely to keep falling over the next few years due in part to tablets, Gartner found today. It noted the small portables not only lost market share in the first two quarters of 2010 but predicted that the category was on a long slide that would drop it to just 10 percent by the end of 2014. Analyst Raphael Vasquez explained that many were simply buying them as cheap notebooks and no longer have interest now that a full-size notebook doesn’t cost much more.
“The recent decline in netbook’ share of the mobile PC market reflects a general realization among buyers that netbooks are less-than-perfect substitutes for standard low-end laptops,” he said.
Computers as a whole, the group dropped its estimate for growth in the second half of the year down about two percent to 15.3 percent as renewed doubts about the American and European economies might curb spending. Intel’s warning of low computer sales was a sign that at least home PC buyers were reluctant to buy in
