According to DRAMeXchange ultrabook shipments may exceed 30 million units in 2013, growing by 30% Y-o-Y thanks to price declines of components such as SSDs, displays and cases.
Also helping further ultrabook growth is increasing focus on processor development from Intel.
Pointing out 2012 as a challenging year for the general PC market is hardly news-- the analyst forecasts 2012 as the first year with negative growth for notebooks, with shipments reaching 186m units with -4.6% Y-o-Y decrease.
Ultrabooks will also fall short of expectations. TrendForce adjusts 2012 forecasts from 15m to 11m. The Intel form factor makes just 6.2% of the total notebook market, with the MacBook Air making 40% of the market.
However TrendForce predicts crucial declines in component costs for 2013-- SSD unit costs may fall by 25-30%, partly thanks to Intel efforts to standardise SSD modules via the NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor) standard.
Intel should also launch the Ultrabook-focused Haswell architecture and Shark Bay platform by H2 2013, allowing vendors to produce even better (and, more crucially, cheaper) ultrabooks.
When it comes to the overall notebook market, TrendForce forecast are less positive-- notebooks will only see 1.3% growth in 2013. Next year will also see the elimination of netbooks from the market, victims of continual cannibalisation from smartphones and tablets.
