The industry's love affair with the netbook seems to be coming to an end. CNET claims that IDC will post sales figures showing a decline in Atom shipments and frankly we are not surprised.

IDC analyst Shane Rau claims that demand for Netbooks has peaked and that Atom shipments in the netbook segment are plateauing. Rau believes that consumers will start looking for more value instead of just low cost. However, it also worth noting that high end netbooks, if such a thing even exists, are facing competition from thin-and-light notebooks based on Intel's CULV processors. Although they are somewhat pricier, 11.6-inch CULVs are a world apart from netbooks in all respects. Furthermore netbooks are starting to face competition from tablets and smartbooks, making a bad situation even worse.

According to IDC findings, Atoms made up 20.3 percent of all Intel mobile processor shipments in Q1 2010. Back in Q4 2009, the share was 24.3 percent and in Q3 2009 it was 23.5 percent. Mind you, Intel doesn't seem overly concerned about the drop and it's likely that the chipmaker simply doesn't want to see too many Atom-based netbooks on the market for a variety of reasons.

More here.