Ultrabooks will grow at three times the rate of tablets over the next five years, according to Juniper Research.

The outfit predicts that shipments expected to reach 178 million by 2016 with the largest markets for Ultrabooks to be North America and Western Europe, where consumers are in general more affluent. The rest of the world will continue to buy  notebooks, particularly in the Asia Pacific region by 2016.

Juniper analyst Daniel Ashdown said that ultrabooks were enabling the industry to respond to Apple's Macbook Air, which retains a niche segment of the market due to its consistently high price. However, Ashdown warns that Ultrabooks will not achieve mass market success until Intel works out how to bring down costs.