Ultrabooks are eating into the overall laptop market share

Ultrabooks have kicked-off this year's sale on a positive note. According to the Verge, the ultra thin and light notebooks constituted about 11 percent of sales in the $700 and above category of Windows notebooks during the first 5 months of this year in the US alone.

As per figures reported by a leading market research company, the NPD Group shows, that while overall sales for Windows notebooks fell by 17 percent, Ultrabooks have helped sustain the fall at just 3 percent for notebooks priced over $700. On the other hand those over the $900 price tag showed a 39 percent increase compared to last year.

The Vice President of industry analysis at the NPD Group, Stephen Baker observes:

"Ultrabooks have helped establish a market for more premium-priced Windows notebooks at retail. The share of sales that the $700+ notebook segment represents jumped from about 12 percent in 2011 to nearly 14 percent in 2012 as a result of the solid market acceptance Ultrabooks have gained.  Consumers continue to respond positively to finally being offered stylish, thinner, and more premium device offerings than ever before within the Windows ecosystem."

The strongest performance comes as Ultrabook ASPs remain considerably more expensive than the market, with selling prices averaging $927 during the first five months of 2012, and only falling to $885 for the first time in May. Comparatively, Windows market price averaging $510 has risen by $13 over the same period, largely due to the popularity of Ultrabooks.

Baker predicts that lower-cost Ultrabooks will be gaining more and more popularity and with the Advent of Windows 8, a host of Ultrabooks with touchscreens and convertible form factors will storm the market, which will further benefit the already growing popularity of the Ultrabooks. But the MacBook Air is still leading the market and remains the No.1 competition for Ultrabooks and considerable effort will be needed to topple it.

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