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Laptop vendors bank on show

Notebook computer vendors expect to cash in on the annual IT Month electronics exposition which started Saturday, with unit sales expected to to double on the same period last year due to an improved economic outlook and big discounts, company officials said yesterday.

"The first deal was done on Saturday morning, which is supposed to be a slack time, because most consumers prefer to place orders on the last two days of the show in the hope of a steeper price cut," an Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) official told the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity.

Asustek, Taiwan's No.1 laptop vendor in terms of unit sales, sold 500 laptops on the first day, a nearly 43 percent surge from the 350 units recorded last year.

He attributed the surge in IT spending to a better economic outlook and steep price cuts, announced even before the opening of the show.

"We believe the momentum will carry through the following days," he said. Asustek hopes to sell 20,000 laptops at this year's show, up from 10,000 units last year.

Unit sales are expected to continue to rise 10 to 20 percent to about 600 units on the second day of the computer show, said Kevin Lin (林福能), a sales director at Asustek.

The computer trade show attracted about 65,000 visitors on the first day, according to estimates of the show's organizer, the Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會). The association predicted the number of visitors would rise to around 750,000 during the nine-day show, up from 700,000 last year, but due to an hourly 25,000 limitation on visitors due to safety concerns, TCA said a visitor count for the second day would not reflect the true interest in the show.

The US' IBM Corp and Taiwan's Elitegroup Computer Systems Co (ECS, 精英電腦) are also expecting to loosen consumers' purse strings at the show following what they termed an economic revival.

"Our first day unit sales grew at about 10 percent from last year and sales will continue to grow at least 20 percent today [Sunday], thanks to the improved economy," said Hank Horng (洪漢青), an executive with IBM Taiwan's personal computing division.

A representative at Elitegroup's booth -- participating in the annual event for the first time -- said the first day sales were unexpectedly strong.

Big discounts and a major change in people's purchasing habits triggered the buying spree, the unnamed employee said.

"Consumers have changed a lot recently. Most people tend to choose laptops, rather than desktops, for their first personal computer," he explained.

"This trend is in line with the gradual replacement of desktops with laptops," he added.

Elitegroup offered about NT$4,000 in average price cuts. Acer Inc, the most-well-known local PC brand in the world, has offered discounts of between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000.

Despite the sharp price cuts, some consumers are still keeping their buying on hold in anticipation of better bargain prices before the show's conclusion on Nov. 9 in Taipei's World Trade Center.

"I'm here just to check prices. I won't buy anything today. But, I'll come back on the last day because they always offer the best prices at that time," said a young college student surnamed Yang, who plans to buy a new laptop and a digital camera.
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