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Far Eastern notebook makers reckon that Intel’s ultrabook push will come up short of Intel’s target for 30 to 40 per cent of the notebook market, largely as a result of Europeans favouring larger notebooks.
Notebook manufacturer sources quoted by industry watch site the Digitimes are of the view that ultrabooks will account for just one-in-five notebooks solid in 2012. Considerably less than Intel would like.
The problem, they say, is Europe where we tend to favour notebooks which are 15-inches and up, shying away from ultra portables with screen sizes of 13 to 14-inches. One of the likely reason for this is that notebooks are used as main computing devices rather than additional PCs aimed at mobile tasks.
The manufacturers pointed out that 15-inch notebooks made up 40-45 per cent of the global market and 35 to 40 per cent are 14-inch models. The vast majority of ultrabooks are 13.3-inches. In a sense Intel is hoping that people will scale their screens in pursuit of the sexy thin Macbook Air-like form factor.
Meanwhile makers of ultrabooks are apparently unconvinced that Europeans, at least, will decide to change their ways just so Intel can hit their goals for the new notebook strategy. Doubtless they’ll be plenty of thin and light 14 and 15-inch notebooks, they just wont be ‘ultrabooks’.
