In light of expected weakness in the consumer market this year, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Taiwan, the nation's third largest laptop vendor, plans to strengthen its foothold in the commercial segment to sustain growth this year, a company official said yesterday.
"The commercial market is our main target this year, in view of slower demand for laptops in the retail segment," said Dennis Chen (
The commercial market is expected to grow 10 percent to 15 percent this year, driven by the replacement demand, Chen said.
The nation's commercial segment, which consists of government and corporate clients, is estimated to account for around half of Taiwan's notebook market, with over 500,000 units last year, according to HP Taiwan.
Chen also acknowledged the company has sensed some concerns from some corporate clients over rival IBM Corp's sale of its PC unit to Lenovo Group (聯想), which will provide an opportunity for HP to expand its commercial laptop business.
The company yesterday unveiled several new notebook computer models with Intel Corp's latest Sonoma platform, an upgraded Centrino mobile technology central processing unit, and enhanced security functions. The units cost between NT$43,900 and NT$71,900.
HP Taiwan outperformed Acer Inc and IBM Taiwan last year, taking first place in the nation's commercial PC market. The company had a 12.6 percent share of the commercial market in the fourth quarter of last year, up from 11.3 percent in the previous quarter, according to International Data Corp.
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