ASUS and Acer have launched their first Ultrabooks to tackle MacBook Air. While the industry people have shown a lot of interest in this product category the consumers are not convinced by the new models, mainly due to the high prices and hardware limitations.
Ultrabooks that many thought would sell in high quantities in 2012, appears to have fallen short in an ocean of other noterbooks. Both ASUS and Acer were expecting to ship 200,000 – 300,000 Ultrabooks each, but both have revised the prognosis to only 100,000.
The reason is according to sources in the sales channel due to the relatively high price. In Taiwan there are only the more expensive ASUS UX21 and UX31 versions and they cost 1,200 to 1,500 dollar, and not at all below 1,000 dollar as promised. Acer Aspire S3 is slightly lower at 1,100 dollar, but the hardware relative to the price makes it unattractive to many.
It is not clear how the market as a whole will receive the new models, but neither Asus nor Acer are willing to increase production before demand rises.
Ultrabooks are not yet an attractive alterantive to popular MacBook Air
Despite meager demand and caution among buyers they believe that Ultrabooks could make 10 percent of the market for notebooks in March-April 2012. This is the period that Intel Ivy Bridge launches, and with Windows 8 they expect Ultrabooks to rise up to 20 – 30 percent of the market.
