While PC makers are betting on “ultrabooks” to entice consumers to upgrade to the soon-to-be-launched thinner, cheaper notebooks with longer battery life, a research house apparently thinks otherwise.
“While some believe ultrabooks could revive notebook growth and Asustek [Computer Inc (華碩)], the first to introduce the ultrabook, should benefit, we think the ultrabook is killing notebook contract makers’ premium lines and may dilute their profit margins,” Daiwa Capital Market analyst Calvin Huang (黃文堯) said.
“We forecast zero growth for global notebook shipments for 2011 and believe the ultrabook alone may not be enough to revive notebook growth in 2012,” he said in a report dated Wednesday.
At the Computex trade show early last month, Intel Corp introduced the ultrabook platform, which it said would make notebooks thinner, lighter and more affordable, with price tags of less than US$1,000. The battery life would be for more than 10 hours.
These ultrabook notebooks are intended to compete with Apple Inc’s MacBook Air, whose worldwide shipments could easily top 600,000 units per month, the report said.
Asustek general sales manager Kevin Lin (林福能) said on Monday that the company was on schedule to debut its first two ultrabook notebooks in September.
He said depending on the specifications, some may cost more than NT$30,000 (US$1,041).
Daiwa said Intel was lowering the price of its low-voltage processors to make thin and light notebooks mainstream.
“In other words, Intel is cutting prices to stimulate notebook demand,” Huang wrote.
Intel’s subsidy is not enough because to make an ultrabook, other advanced and expensive components, like ultra-thin panels, solid state drives, metal casings and polymer batteries, are required to make it comparable to the MacBook Air.
Huang said these advanced components generally cost 50 to 100 percent more than mainstream components used in notebooks.
Because of this, to match the MacBook Air’s price tag, Taiwanese notebook contract makers may have to compromise and use second-grade components in the ultrabooks, which could compromise performance, he said.
The other deciding factor is that Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 may or may not add to the overall user experience of ultrabooks, and consumers would only be able to tell when the operating system finally comes on the market late next year, Daiwa said.
Despite Daiwa’s pessimism, Compal Electronics Co (仁寶), the world’s second-largest notebook contract maker, said last month it believed ultrabooks would revive sluggish notebook sales.
Compal president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) said ultrabooks would spur consumers to replace their older laptops, and replacement demand would boost overall shipments starting from the second half of next year.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
RSS