Only 500K Ultrabooks Sold So Far according to IDC

Intel has been betting on ultrabooks to re-ignite PC sales, but PC sales remain flat, and Ultrabook sales are far below expectations. Will windows 8 turn things around or make things worse?

After a not so encouraging Q2 PC market report from Gartner and IDC recently, IDC now estimates that only 500,000 Ultrabooks were sold in H1. This compares to forecasted sales of about 225 million notebooks for the year. Ultrabooks were predicted by Intel to capture about 30 to 40 percent of the market once fully available. "Ultrabooks have not yet produced a significant rise in volumes – in part due to anticipation of improvements such as Windows 8, which is expected later this year, but also due to pricing," IDC said.

IDC's David Daoud said: "The U.S. market suffered a double-digit contraction in the second quarter as market saturation and economic factors combine with anticipation of Windows 8 and other changes later in the year. In this context, consumers are delaying purchases, and vendors and retailers are slowing down their PC activities to clear existing inventories. The situation is exacerbated by consumer notebook saturation, a slowing replacement cycle in the commercial sector, and the big macro-economic and political events affecting confidence and spending."