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Both ultrabook, MacBook Air shipments to swell in 2013

Both ultrabooks and the MacBook Air should see an appreciable rise in 2013 shipments, according to market researcher Gartner.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Dell XPS 13 ultrabook.
Dell XPS 13 ultrabook. Dell

Ultrabook and MacBook Air shipments numbers will grow by about 7 million units in 2013, according to market researcher Gartner.

"We are looking at about 5 percent of total mobile notebook shipments in 2012. That includes Apple's MacBook Air, which is a big portion of that five percent," Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner, told CNET.

Kitagawa went on to say that "big" does not necessarily mean more than 50 percent but would not get more specific.

Gartner describes the combination of ultrabooks and the MacBook Air as "ultramobile notebooks." Typically, ultramobile laptops are under 3.5 pounds and less than 0.8-inches thick.

This year, Gartner expects about 10.7 million units to ship. That number will jump to about 17 million next year, Kitagawa said.

Another market research firm, IDC, said last week that ultrabooks alone would only hit about one million units in 2012. But a few days later, IDC retracted that number, citing insufficient data.