ISI Group’s Brian Marshall this afternoon reflects on news today that Taiwanese computer maker Acer (2535TW) believes so-called ultrabook laptop computers will become the 25% to 35% of its total notebook shipments this year, as related by Brian Westover of PC Magazine this morning.
Marshall writes that given Acer’s position as the number two notebook maker in the world, after Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), that would tend to imply there will be 8 million to 10 million ultrabooks shipped by the company this year. He thinks that projection is “aggressive,” on Acer’s part, as he’s modeling 8% of total notebook shipments to be ultrabooks this year.
But it all hangs on cost, writes Marshall:
With cost as the greatest barrier (most are above ~$1,000), we believe many vendors will look at hybrid (SSD+HDD) storage solutions (rather than pure SSD) which can cut prices by ~$300 and help get near ~$700 price points needed for mainstream adoption. In addition, AMD is expected to launch its new ultra-portable platform in June that is targeting 10-20% lower BOM costs than Intel‘s (INTC) s platform.
Intel’s own projection is even more aggressive than Acer’s, notes Marshall, projecting 40% of notebooks to be ultrabooks. Moreover, almost half — 45% — of the 18 million ultrabooks shipping this year, by his calculation, will be not the PC ultrabook proper, but its inspiration, Apple’s (AAPL) MacBook Air laptop.
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