Acer expects its ultrabook prices will be able to drop from US$1,000 currently to US$799-899 in the second quarter of 2012, a decline of 20%, and will drop further to US$499 in 2013 as other PC brand vendors will all start mass shipping ultrabooks in 2012, according to company president Jim Wong.

Acer currently ships 100,000 ultrabooks each month and is expected to achieve its goal of shipping 250,000-300,000 units by the end of 2011.

As for hard drive shortages, Wong expects Acer to only suffer a supply gap of 10-15% in the fourth quarter, far less than the overall supply gap of 30-35% estimated by hard drive players, which market watchers believe is due to hard drive players providing supply priority to brand vendors.

Since Acer has been aggressively clearing its inventory in Europe since the second quarter, reducing its original inventory level from 80 days to 20-30 days, Wong estimates that the company will have a chance to break even in the fourth quarter.

With Acer changing its strategy from pushing shipment volumes to focusing on product quality and consumer demand, although the company's notebook ranking has dropped from second-largest to fourth, Wong expects the company to still have a chance

Source:digitimes