Much was expected of touchscreen laptops at the time of the release of Windows 8. Microsoft launched its latest operating system in October 2012, which was soon followed by many OEMs bringing to market shiny new touchscreen products.
These ranged from traditional notebooks and ultrabooks to convertible hybrid laptops.
All these devices were expected to go along with Redmond’s vision of a touch friendly operating system, and several analysts predicted that consumers would be interested in buying touchscreen laptops rather than ones with regular displays.
Now it appears that the PC community has not entirely embraced the future that Microsoft has envisioned — sales of touchscreen laptops for the year are said to be lower than expected.
A new report over at Computerworld has Bob O’Donnell, an analyst with IDC, revealing that while the market research firm first thought that around 17 to 18 percent of laptops sold in 2013 would have touchscreens, things have not quite panned out as expected.
Now IDC believes that touchscreen notebook sales will hover anywhere between 10 to 15 percent.
A couple of reasons are cited for this slow take off. The increased price of touchscreen laptops is the major factor — touch enabled devices often retail for almost twice the price of regular ones.
And secondly, not many touch enabled apps on the Windows Store are compelling enough for PC users to want to upgrade to touchscreen models.
All Comments
Still close to 20% is nothing to sneeze at. As the price of touch devices continue to come down, the numbers will pick up. But it really doesn’t matter. The more that people adopt Windows 8, the more they see that it is not an touch-only OS.