If you've been very, very good, Santa may well place a netbook under the Christmas tree.

Market research firm DisplaySearch has just published figures that show whilst mainstream notebook units increased by five per cent from 2008 to 2009 - 136.3m vs. 129.6m - revenue dropped by a few percentage points, intimating lower average selling prices.

One reason that ASPs have dropped is down to the continued interest in netbooks. DisplaySearch reckons that netbook shipments more than doubled from last year, now totalling some 33.3m compared to 16.4m a year ago. They now account for around 20 per cent of all notebook shipments, making them far more than a niche sector.

However, the firm goes on to say that the netbook portion of the entire mobile pie isn't likely to skyrocket as it has done this year, and it sees the market stabilising.

“Mini-notes continue to be a significant piece of the notebook PC pie, in terms of both units and revenue. However, our long-term outlook is that the mini-note share of the notebook PC market has stabilized, and will remain at approximately 20% through 2011 before starting to erode. While mini-notes offer lower ASPs and are thinner and lighter than notebook PCs, the performance of larger notebook PCs continues to improve while prices continue to steadily decline, increasing the performance gap while narrowing the price gap.” said John F. Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research. “For 2010, we expect further erosion of ASPs across almost every portable computer segment. However, unit growth should be sufficient to offset ASP decline, leading to flat Y/Y revenue for the portable PC market.”

Let us know if you were lucky enough to receive one of those 33.3m netbooks under the festive tree.