Acer plans to release an 11.6-inch touchscreen notebook in mid-May, priced at only US$399 and since such a price point has already hit brand vendors' bottom line, there is unlikely to be any other touchscreen notebooks with an even lower price to appear in the short term, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

The touchscreen notebook and its touch panel glass, are both manufactured by Wistron. Compared to Corning's Gorilla, Wistron's solution using soda lime as material, is about 10% cheaper, but it is inferior in terms of both quality and rigidness; however, the solution still receives broad adoption in notebook products, the sources said.

The sources pointed out that the Gorilla has been adopted mostly by mobile devices without a cover such as tablets or smartphones, and touchscreen notebooks thank to their covers, are able to adopt lower-tier solutions to save costs.

Acer originally estimated that the US$599 will be the sweet spot price of touchscreen notebooks, but seeing the price point did not attract demand as expected, the vendor is now set to push the price further down to promote its products. Microsoft's subsidies in Windows 8 licensing fees for 11.6-inch and below devices are also believed to help support Acer's US$399 price point.

Acer estimated its touchscreen notebooks to have accounted for 15% of its overall notebook shipments in the first quarter and expects the proportion to reach 30-35% by the fourth quarter.

In addition to Acer, Asustek Computer also plans to launch touchscreen notebooks priced at US$399 and touchscreen notebooks have accounted for 20% of its total notebook shipments in the first quarter

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved