Intel Corp yesterday said the price of the first Ultrabooks could be higher than US$1,000 when they make their formal debut on the market by December, but added that there would be models selling for less than that in the fourth quarter.
The US chip giant expected the first series of Ultrabooks to sell for more than US$1,000, which contradicted the “less than US$1,000 price tag” it had claimed at the Computex Taipei trade fair in June.
With shipments expected to ramp up next year, which would drive down component costs, price tags would gradually drop over time, Erik Reid, Intel’s general manager of its mobile client platform division, said in Taipei.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
PC makers such as Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Acer Inc (宏碁) and Hewlett-Packard Co have committed to the rollout of notebooks using the Ultrabook platform.
Ultrabooks, deemed competitors of Apple Inc’s super-slim MacBook Air, aim to marry the performance of a laptop with tablet-like features.
They will be thin, light and powerful, less than 21mm thick and sell at “mainstream” prices, according to Intel’s statement.
The chipmaker is optimistic that more than 40 percent of all consumer notebooks next year will use the Ultrabook platform.
However, Reid said that to achieve that penetration rate “there is a lot of work for Intel.”
Analysts are less convinced that the Ultrabook will gain as high a penetration as Intel claims.
“If Ultrabooks sell for over US$1,000, consumers could opt for better machines within that budget,” said Ryan Lee (李易聰), an analyst with Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業研究所). “Ultrabooks with [the more powerful] Intel Core i5 and i7 chips would have to sell above US$1,300 and that will deter consumers.”
Asustek, which is expected to take the lead by launching the market’s first Ultrabooks next month, said last month that its Ultrabooks would sell for more than US$1,000 unless they use the less expensive, less powerful i3 chip.
The combined cost of the chips, Microsoft Corp’s operating system and solid-state-drive storage already make up half of the Ultrabook’s cost, making it hard to drive down the average selling price, Asustek said.
To give the Ultrabook project a boost, Intel yesterday announced the activation of a US$300 million venture capital fund dedicated to its research and development.
“We expect Asia to take up a big portion of the fund, given it has a pool of original equipment and design manufacturers and this is where many innovations are coming from,” said David Flanagan, managing director of mobile communications and infrastructure at Intel Capital.
The fund will be invested over a span of three to four years in companies building hardware and software technologies for Ultrabook, he said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS