Occasionally, like every business, we update our plans and predictions to make sure we’re on the right course.  We’ve just done that for the Ultrabook sector and from what we can see there’s a lot of potential in 2013 for Ultrabooks to rise to the levels of sales that netbooks had three years ago – an ecosystem that many were happy to be in.  There’s potential for more in 2014 too as the Ultrabook moves into its third generation. This will be the Ultrabook that Intel wanted to make from day one and is the only Ultrabook iteration that should be used to evaluate the segment. We’re positive that prices, performance, style, battery life, operating system and form factors will impress customers and developers to make the upgrade in 2013 and that we’ll see an impressive sales spike later in the year.

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Traffic levels here are up 2X. Trends are up 2X, ad rates are up and if the rate of increase continues, Ultrabooks could be more of a trend than notebooks before the end of the year.

As early as Saturday October 20th, days before the launch of Windows 8, traffic started to pick up here. By Windows 8 launch day traffic levels had risen to double normal traffic levels and then on Sunday night I saw something happen that I haven’t seen since, funnily enough, Daniel Craig starred in his first James Bond film and promoted a Sony UMPC. It’s not Daniel Craig this time round though, it’s the Ultrabook Convertible.

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The Olympics is over, the school summer holidays in many countries are drawing to a close. The new season for Ultrabooks starts now.

IFA, the big and important consumer electronics trade show in Germany is only weeks away and Intel’s Developer Forum follows up just days later. Back-to-school marketing, Christmas model launches, the next Generation of Ultrabooks with Windows 8 and Touch and even some information about 2013 Ultrabooks can be expected. Sales numbers will rise and Ultrabooks will face their first big test against consumer laptops. The big question is, will prices drop enough for consumers to get interested in this very difficult economic climate?

Our timeline predictions up until now have been reliable. We’ve reviewed that timeline to Dec 2012 and see no reason for changes. Details are below including an update on new Ultrabook models available.

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Here’s a round-up of some news that I want to bring to you quickly. UK readers stay tuned. Students might want to buy an Envy 4 in the next 48 hours and Intel gives us more to think about on Ultrabook sales growth.

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What a depressing, and somewhat embarrassing set of news items we’ve seen for Ultrabooks on the Web this week.

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much interesting Ultrabook news this week and as we hit summer holidays, silly season starts. Stick with Ultrabooknews for a more sensible take on whats’ going on because journalists, no, juniors employed to cover summer holidays are fed with news items and hints and it usually ends up looking cheap.

“Hey, IDG published a report on the PC market. There’s a few mentions of Ultrabooks in it and it looks bad. Send some provocative copy to the editor because page views are down.” Junior writer ends up with pieces that get edited to this, this and this.

Fact 1 – There are no Ultrabook sales numbers available, only best guesses.

Fact 2 – Ultrabook sales started in June – the last month in Q2.

Where does Fact 2 come from? Us. We’ve got more too…

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Many have said it before and many are likely to say it again during 2012. PC’s are boring.

Source: Gartner

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According to an NPD report, Ultrabooks are selling well in some segments of the US market. In the Jan-May 2012 period they helped push an increase in sales of the $700 + segment and comprised nearly 11% of that part of the market.Month-on-month growth seems to be strong too.

Soure: NPD

Overall the $700 segment represents  14% of the laptop market but profit per unit and profit margins are generally higher so it’s an important figure.

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Up to now we’ve worked out that 2nd-gen Ultrabooks will be available from June (our estimate,) that there are 100 Ultrabooks launching this year (Intel quote) and that the prediction is for about 20 million shipments in 2012 (Juniper Research projection.) A brief update from Digitimes runs along the same lines but says it has the information from the supply chain.

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