Initial ultrabook sales a major disappointment?

Despite all the hype over the last couple of months, it seems ultrabooks are a hard sell. Anonymous channel sources told DigiTimes that initial ultrabook sales are not up to expectations, Acer and ASUS are expected to sell just 100,000 units each by the end of the year, falling short of their targets of 200,000 to 300,000 units.

Acer's 13.3-inch Aspire S3 is available at NT$32,900 (US$1,101) in the Taiwan market, which is still about US$100 higher than the price set for comparable MacBook Air models, the sources indicated. Additionally, the hardware speculations of the Aspire S3 are not really prominent, undermining consumers' willingness to try the model.

Due to unclear market demand for the new notebooks, Acer and Asustek have yet to ramp up orders, the sources revealed.

The site hard ultrabooks may capture 10 percent of the laptop market by March-April 2012, with the ratio likely moving to 20-30 percent by Q4 2012.