The production volume of Taiwan's top six notebook PC makers is expected to rise by 30 to 40 percent next year, the Economic Daily News reported yesterday.
The six companies -- Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Acer Inc (宏電), Compal Electronic Inc (仁寶), Inventec Corp (英業達), Arima Computer Corp (華宇) and First International Computer (大眾) -- are posting a combined production volume of around 12 million notebook PCs this year.
Production could reach anywhere from 15.5 million to 17 million next year, the report said.
Taiwan's notebook PC makers are relatively conservative in their forecasts as PC sales remain sluggish worldwide.
Quanta Computer expects to sell 3.5 million to 3.75 million notebooks next year -- a 40 to 50 percent increase from this year. The company's latest estimate for this year's production stands at 2.5 million or so. Acer's senior vice president Philip Peng (
Compal Electronic plans for 2.6 million to 2.9 million notebooks next year -- a 40 to 50 percent growth next year, from this year's 1.86 million.
Inventec was much more conservative in its forecast, with 1.8 million projected for next year compared this year's 1.6 million.
Arima Computer projects a 30 percent growth for this year -- from around 1.6 million to 2 million.
First International Computer also predicts a 30 percent growth -- from 1.8 million to between 2 million and 2.5 million.
One analyst says the numbers look feasible.
"That local manufacturers' estimated increase by 30 to 40 percent for next year sounds reasonable for me," James Huang (黃建銘), analyst at the National Securities Corp (建弘證券), told the Taipei Times yesterday.
He said that, as compared to the estimated growth of global notebook output in 2001 -- about 15 to 20 percent, the 30 to 40 percent production increase by Taiwanese makers is quite good.
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