Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC brand, yesterday said its upcoming UX series Ultrabook platform would fail to carry price tags of less than US$1,000, as claimed by Intel Corp.
“Unless we use Intel Core i3 chips [the Ultrabooks will not be less than US$1,000]. The price tags will have to go beyond US$1,000 if [more advanced] i5 and i7 chips go into the notebooks,” a person familiar with UX development said.
The UX series will mainly use i5 and i7 to boost performance, he said.
Photo Courtsey of ASUS
The i5 and i7 chips, which are more expensive, plus the operating system and solid-state hard drives would account for about 50 percent of the cost of the ultraslim notebooks, thus driving up the price of the UX series to between US$1,000 and US$2,000, he said.
The UX series, showcased by Asustek at the Computex tech trade fair in late May, aims to rival MacBook Air from Apple Inc.
The UX series has two models — one is 11.6 inches and weighs 1.1kg, while the other is 13.3 inches and weighs 1.3kg.
Intel touted the Ultrabook platform at Computex, saying it would make notebooks thinner, lighter and more affordable, with price tags of less than US$1,000, while adding that battery life would last longer than 10 hours.
Asustek is likely to be the first vendor to debut Ultrabooks. The person said it was on track for a debut in Taiwan in late September.
Other companies, such as Acer Inc (宏碁) and Hewlett-Packard Co, reportedly plan to roll out Ultrabooks by the end of the year.
The person’s comments echoed those of Asustek general sales manager Kevin Lin (林福能), who said earlier this month that the price tags for the UX series would go above US$1,000 based on various specs.
Daiwa Capital Market’s analyst Calvin Huang (黃文堯) said on July 13 that Intel was merely cutting prices for its low-voltage processors to help thin and light notebooks make a comeback.
However, in Huang’s view, Intel’s help might not be enough because to make an Ultrabook, other more advanced and expensive components — such as ultrathin panels, solid-state hard drives, metal casings, high-density interconnect and polymer batteries — are required to make it comparable to the MacBook Air.
Separately, Fitch Ratings yesterday upgraded Asustek’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to “BBB” from “BB+” and its national long-term rating to “A+(twn)” from “A-(twn),” with a stable outlook.
“The upgrade reflects Asustek’s increase in market share and significant improvements to its -financial profile. The company’s focus on quality and innovation is gradually translating into market share gains and growing customer loyalty,” Fitch analyst Kevin Chang (張崇人) said in an e-mailed statement.
Asustek, which pioneered the mini-size notebook PC — also known as a netbook — market in 2009, is also the world’s largest provider of PC motherboards and graphic cards.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS