With many vendors having been reducing their notebook prices to below US$300, sources from the upstream supply chain expect overall notebook sales to increase in the second half of 2014.

Acer is offering an 11.6-inch Celeron-based 320GB HDD notebook, priced at US$199 through Best Buy, while Asustek Computer has a 15.6-inch Celeron-based 500GB HDD model priced at US$229. Toshiba also recently cut a 15.6-inch notebook price to US$229.

Dell is selling a Core i3-based 15.6-inch notebook at US$239 through Amazon, while many Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer, Toshiba and Asustek entry-level models have also been reduced to a price range between US$200-300.

With notebook ASPs approaching the level of tablets, the sources expect sales to continue rising in the second half as some demand will return from tablets to notebooks.