CNET’s Brooke Crothers reports that Apple continues to fend off the ultrabook challenge, with shipments of the thin and light Windows laptops significantly below what Intel had hoped for while Apple’s MacBook Air continues to coast enjoying continued popularity, according to IDC analyst Jay Chou, who told CNET that “The [Ultrabook] volume isn’t there and it’s going to be way below what Intel had hoped for.” Intel had projected at the beginning of the year that Ultrabooks could take 40 percent of the consumer laptop market.
Mr. Chou thinks PC vendors might move a million Ultrabooks this year out of a total of about 225 million laptops IDC estimates will ship by the end of 2012, accounting for a proverbial sipt-in-the-ocean, while shipments of Apple sold about 2.8 million MacBooks in its most recent reported quarter, up slightly from 2.75 million in the same quarter last year.
Early Grade On Intel Ultrabook Push: FAIL
The Register’s Rik Myslewski commentsthat Intel’s much-ballyhooed Ultrabook effort isn’t working out quite as well as the chipmaker had hoped, as IDC analyst Jay Chou told CNET on Wednesday.
Myslewski notes that by contrast, during its 2011 fiscal year, Apple shipped 15.4 million laptops, up substantially from 11.2 million the previous year.
MacBook Air Continues to Trounce Ultrabooks
TrustedReviews’ Jon Mundy observes that while sales of Intel-powered ultrabooks continue to disappoint, Apple’s MacBook Air range goes from strength to strength, while even with the presence excellent Ultrabook efforts like the Samsung Series 9 900X3B, Ultrabook sales continue to falter.
Apple MacBook Outselling Ultrabooks 10 -1
Smarthouse’s David Richards notes that the roughly 500,000 Ultrabooks that were shipped in the first half of 2012 falls woefully short of chipmaker Intel’s aggressive targets for the thin-and-light notebooks, having projected at the beginning of the year that Ultrabooks could take 40 percent of the consumer laptop market. Richards observes that even if PC vendors manage to sell one million units for the full year, that would only represent about 0.4 percent of the 225 million laptops IDC predicts will be sold during the year. Meanwhile Apple’s MacBook Air, which obviously inspired the ultrabook initiative, continues to dominate the sector.
