Ultrabooks won't smash tablets, says analyst
Fondleslabs to be a bigger seller for years
Ultrabooks will not outsell tablets, the next five years at least, though the new skinny laptop category will experience unit-shipment growth three times as fast as the tablet.
So says UK-based market watcher Juniper Research. It predicts that 178m Ultrabooks will ship in 2016, from just under 20m in 2012.
But the number of tablets flying out of factories in 2016 will be 253m.
Research company iSuppli reckons tablets will outsell regular notebooks by then.
Windows 8 will help drive Ultrabook demand, but the cost of Flash storage and of meeting Intel's specifications - it owns the Ultrabook trademark, and vendors can't use the name without agreeing to follow the chip giant's template - will initially make the products pricey.
And Windows 8 will target tablets too, courtesy of the OS' first-time support for ARM chips, though there will be plenty of Intel Atom-based Windows 8 slates out too.
Netbook shipments, Juniper reckons, will have fallen to a third of their current volume by 2016. DisplaySearch, another market watcher, expects 2011's netbook shipments to hit 25.2m units, so we're looking at shipments of around 8m units come 2016, if Juniper's prognosis is correct. ®
COMMENTS
Not a chance
Who in their right mind is going to pay $1,400 for a commoditized Windows PC?
Great plan Wintel, "Hey, you know how Apple came out with the Air 3-4 years ago? How about make a cheaper, knock off Windows version and sell it for $400 more than Air and 3-4x the price of a Windows laptop." Not a chance.
Please, please, no more analyst drivel
You might as well start running a horoscope column; "next week, you will have an unexpected hardware failure... and be careful of the letter 'P' "...
The predictions would be more accurate if you published a random selection of technical terms coupled with a period of time and money.
Easy to see why
- in Joe Punter's eyes tablets are still the shiny-shiny, while ultra's are still "boring ol' laptops".
- Ultra's are twice the price. Joe Punter is twice as skint as last year.
- Why buy a new conventional laptop replacement, when you can get a skinny one with equal or better performance. Nobody will buy an ultra *as well as* a conventional. These figures just reflected Junipers estimation that ultra's will replace conventional laptops in the normal upgrade cycle.
In 5 years time it will be 3x growth? I may as well has stuck a torch up my own arse to come up with the numbers that prediction.
The "nobody" referred to is obviously a metaphorical not a literal, but well done for extrapolating your single use-case to the market. People now have job insecurity and negative equity where once they had disposable income.
Nobody will buy an ultra *as well as* a conventional???
Who says?
I have a 16gb i7 desktop replacement laptop that I generally use on a day to day basis, and for more heavyweight tasks.
However, I also have an 11.6" Macbook Air (which is an Ultrabook IMO) that I use when travelling for both business & pleasure.
Different tools for different job!
