President of Acer Greater China Scott Lin, commenting on the touchscreen and convertible notebook trends brought on by Windows 8, pointed out that he believes these trends can resurrect the PC industry. He expects notebook shipments to enjoy a more than 10% on-year growth to 230 million units in 2013 with Windows 8-based touchscreen ultrabooks to account for 30-40% of the shipments.

In addition to its launch conference in London, the UK, Acer also hosted a conference in Taiwan to debut its latest Windows 8 products on October 31.

At the conference in Taiwan, Lin cited IDC figures that global notebook shipments are expected to reach around 210 million units in 2012, with desktops accounting for 158 million units, and noted that the weak global economy has caused consumers to turn conservative, while their budgets for purchasing a new PC have also been reduced, causing PC replacements to be extended to more than five years, up from three years and eight months in the past. The popularity of PCs also dropped behind that of smartphones and tablets.

Lin pointed out that Acer has already started selling its latest Aspire S7 ultrabook in Taiwan with an initial volume of around 1,000 units.