According to a report released by JP Morgan, Apple’s lightweight notebook the MacBook Air, is going to generate great sales and will stay on top of the market in spite of the rise of its rival Ultrabooks which have been designed by Intel in collaboration with a number of hardware manufacturers. Even as the rival manufacturers try to follow in Apple’s footsteps by releasing their own versions of lightweight and ultra-slim laptops, the Ultrabook range is looking to get increasingly more crowded. Manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Sony along with a couple of others have released their entries into this market which looks to have a potential of being lucrative.
However, one of the main issues with these notebooks has been their cost, as most of the Ultrabook laptops come at over $1000, with a couple priced at around $900, which does not seem to be enough to deal a considerable blow to the dominance of the MacBook Air, according to an analyst named Mark Moskowitz.
In a note released to the investors today, Moskowitz said that Ultrabooks haven’t proven to be a competitive threat to Apple yet. He said that the Ultrabooks come off as devices that are very discretionary, saying that the prices of competitive devices need to fall down below $800 in order to pose a problem for the MacBook Air. The Air itself doesn’t come at a lower price, ranging from $999 to $1599, which depends on the configuration and the model.
However, Moskowitz said that he believes the features of the device, along with its form factor, and also its big head start in the ultra-light laptop category is enough to attract not only Apple enthusiasts but also other customers. However, he added that the first offerings of the Ultrabooks have lacked the right mix of pricing and features to claw Apple’s market share.
In the previous reports which have come from JP Morgan, the firm has estimated that the MacBook Air generates sales of around $2-3 billion. However in the wake of the continuing popularity of the laptop, the firm has now posted estimated sales of around $7 billion for the next year, which comes out to almost 1.6 million units sold per quarter. Among the regions where the laptop has been recorded to register the highest growth in terms of its sales is China where its sales grew by 339% as compared to the quarter from last year.
