Global Ultrabook shipments by Lenovo Group (聯想), the world’s second-biggest PC vendor, should reach 60 million units in 2015, Lenovo’s Taiwan branch general manager Justine Liang (梁百鋒) said.
The revised forecast for 2015 is double the company’s original estimate, Liang told reporters after the company launched two Ultrabooks yesterday.
“Ultralight and ultrathin notebooks are becoming the mainstream in the global notebook market,” he said.
Driven by the launch of Intel Corp’s third-generation Core i processors and Microsoft Corp’s offer of an upgrade to Windows 8 for consumers purchasing a Windows 7 PC now, Lenovo expects the company’s PC sales in Taiwan to rise 20 percent sequentially in the third quarter, Liang said, adding that Lenovo is already Taiwan’s third-largest PC vendor by market share.
The two Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks Lenovo launched yesterday were the IdeaPad U310 (13-inch) and IdeaPad U410 (14-inch), which retail for NT$28,900 and NT$30,900 respectively.
Both are 40 percent faster than their rivals in terms of boot time, the company said.
Lenovo posted lackluster sales in Taiwan for its first-generation Ultrabook, the IdeaPad U300, which Liang attributed to manufacturing problems.
“We are more confident this time because Intel will push its Ivy Bridge processors as well as Ultrabooks very hard, and that will create a big momentum in the market,” Liang said.
He said the company was also optimistic about user response and faster sales momentum when Windows 8 debuts.
Ultrabooks will account for about 30 percent of Lenovo’s total PC shipments in Taiwan, he added.
During a keynote address at Computex Taipei last week, Intel senior vice president Tom Kilroy said more than 35 Ultrabook systems are available now or will be ready for purchase within 30 days, with more than 110 models expected in the next year.
Later this year, Intel and the PC industry will further evolve Ultrabook devices with the addition of touch-based functions, Kilroy said.
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