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Asus Leads Global Market for Touchscreen Laptops in 1st Half of 2013

2013/12/12 | By Steve Chuang

Despite touchscreen laptops having failed to revive the global PC industry as expected before, world's major brands are still promoting such products actively, with Taiwan-based Asus shipping 1.651 million units to occupy 26.3% of the segment in the first half of 2013 to lead among its counterparts, according to the latest report by NPD DisplaySearch, a U.S.-headquartered market research institute.

The report indicates that global shipment of touchscreen laptops totaled approximately 6.2 million units, about 1.7 million units being ultra-slim models, in the first half of this year.

During the period, Asus led the segment with shipment of 1.651 million units and a market share of 26.3%, followed by Lenovo and Acer, which shipped some 923,000 and 846,000 units, respectively, to command a 14.7% and 13.5% share. Meanwhile, HP and Sony came fourth and fifth, respectively, with a 9.3% and 8% share, shown by NPD DisplaySearch's report.

Although touchscreen laptops made a disappointing debut in the first half of the year, this has yet to reduce the optimism among global brands towards growth potential of the segment, noted NPD DisplaySearch. It added that about 19.8 million units of such products are forecast to be shipped for the whole year to account for 11% of overall laptop shipment, driven partly by support from Intel, and partly by seasonal booms during the second half.

As global brands still pin hopes of recovery on touchscreen laptops and believe global popularity to steadily grow, the research institute predicts a penetration rate of such models in the global laptop market to reach 40% in 2017.

To maintain growth momentum, Asus has just launched its Transformer Book T100 touchscreen laptop, which has remained one of the hottest-selling notebook PCs on Amazon's shopping website as a strong sales driver. Notable is that the brand just set its sales goals for 2014 at its 3-day global sales meeting that began December 2, to achieve 3% yearly growth in conventional laptop sales, double desktop PC shipment, and attain tablet shipment of 12 million units at least along with 5 million units of smartphones for a 2.3-fold growth compared to this year.

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Rankings of World's Top 5 Touchscreen Laptop Brands by Market Share in 1st Half of 2013
Ranking

Brand

Market Share

Proportion of Overall Laptop Shipment

1

Asus

26.3%

20.0%

2

Lenovo

14.7%

17.6%

3

Acer

13.5%

9.2%

4

HP

9.3%

7.4%

5

Sony

8.0%

4.4%

Source: NPD DisplaySearch