More and more youthful consumers will be investing in smartbooks as they want to be constantly and continuously online, according to an industry expert.
Franck Nicholls, marketing manager of consumer products at Freescale for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that smartbooks are perfectly suited to a younger, school-age demographic.
He added that being connected constantly to the world wide web, where social networking sites can be accessed quickly, is of great importance to a younger age-group.
Mr Nicholls pointed to research by Alexa.com, which showed that the average Facebook user spends 30 minutes per day on the website, checking their profile, chatting with other users and looking at photos.
"The expected users for smartbooks want intuitive, trendy, and powerful devices that become extensions of themselves," he commented.
According to data by Strategy Analytics, mobile broadband subscriptions will grow from 200 million in 2009 to 1.3 billion by the end of 2014 thanks to internet-enabled devices such as smartbooks and netbooks.