Half of All Notebooks Will be Intel Ultrabooks by 2016

GBI Research, a provider of business intelligence data, believes that Intel's

will rebound as prices decline.

By 2016, the research firm said that Ultrabooks prices will drop by roughly 50 percent, going from an average of $1,050 per unit to just $510 per unit. At that time, sales of Intel's lightweight computers should make up half of all notebook sales. According to GBI Research's

, only 1.3 million Ultrabooks were sold in 2011. Intel was expected to ship 22 million Ultrabooks in 2012, but that number was recently reduced to just

. Despite the slow start, GBI Research believes that worldwide Ultrabook sales will reach 148.7 million by 2016, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 109 percent. While the Americas are currently the biggest consumer of Ultrabooks, GBI Research said that this will change over the next five years. By then, GBI Research said the "Asia-Pacific region is expected to become the biggest buyer of Ultrabooks in 2016, with an estimated 55 million units." "The Americas are predicted to come second with 54 million unit sales, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will come third with combined sales of around 40 million," the researcher wrote.