Ultrabooks are dead? Then why are they outselling Apple's entire laptop line?
Note: Yes, there is a real difference between shipped and sold. I was trying to make a much larger point, but I'll add a short note to clarify some notes that I've received.
Context & Ripple Effects
The shipment comparison lands after the netbook category’s decline and amid a deliberate effort to recast thin laptops as a higher-end PC segment. Intel had already outlined a $300 million ultrabook push aimed at challenging Apple’s laptop appeal, while PC makers were placing their own bets on the format.
The article’s clarification matters: shipment volume is evidence of channel demand, not proof of equivalent end-user sales. Even so, the comparison makes ultrabooks harder to dismiss as a niche label at a moment when PC vendors need a successor to netbooks.
First-order effects
- Intel and the PC makers that backed ultrabooks gain a prominent volume benchmark for the category, although the shipped-versus-sold distinction limits what it says about retail demand.
- Apple becomes the reference point for a PC-industry category built explicitly around thinner, premium-positioned laptops.
Second-order effects
- PC makers that had bet on ultrabooks have greater incentive to concentrate laptop lineups and marketing on the format rather than on the fading netbook tier.
- Intel’s ultrabook campaign puts competing PC designs under pressure to meet the category’s thin-and-light proposition instead of competing chiefly on low entry prices.
Third-order effects
- If shipment momentum converts into sell-through, the laptop market is likely to organize less around the netbook-versus-notebook split and more around premium portable design as a mainstream PC category.
- The episode points to a structural shift in which chip suppliers help define consumer-facing hardware categories, not just provide components to PC makers.
The trend: PC vendors are moving from low-cost netbooks toward branded, design-led thin laptops as they try to defend the notebook market against Apple.