Referring to industry sources, Digitimes reports that the average selling price of the emerging category will not arrive in the $600 - $700 price range before 2013. the reasons for the high prices are high component costs, which would include SSDs as well as custom-made parts such as extremely thin LCD panels.
As demand kicks in, production numbers rise and vendors are able to drive down costs a $799 retail price could be achieved by the second quarter of this year, Digitimes wrote. While it is only the beginning for mainstream ultrabooks, notebook vendors are already feeling price pressure. Margin erosion is likely to occur in the second half of 2012 as the competitive field gets more crowded.
Some stores are already selling sub $800 ultrabooks, such as the Acer Aspire S3, while the majority of ultrabooks are still positioned in the $1000 to $1200 market.
