But according to a recent quote by Acer Global President Jianren Weng during CeBIT 2012, at least one person in the company believes that it can drop ultrabook prices down to the $499 mark by 2013 and raise competitive stakes against the tablet industry - against the Apple iPad, against a variety of Android tablets and against a slew of other smaller players.
The Verge recently spoke with Acer's laptop team at CeBIT 2012 and learned that the current $799 price for the Aspire S3 entry-level ultrabook is actually too low for Acer to generate any profit. The Aspire S3 apparently breaks even between manufacturing costs and its selling price and Acer's only ultrabook revenues source from its premium-level SKUs. While Acer's global president might believe that the idea of a sub-$500 ultrabook is feasible by 2013, the company's own laptop department raises skeptically optimistic concerns that the company will even be able to reach a profitable $799 by then.
More on Acer's ultrabook profitability strategy and cost-reduction hypothesis can be found here.