The nation’s leading contract notebook manufacturers should see shipments increase 24 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter on the back of strong orders from major overseas PC vendors, Citigroup said on Friday.
“We expect shipments of the top five original design notebook manufacturers to regain growth momentum in September, following likely flat shipments in August, on the back of the continuing resilient strength of orders,” Citigroup analyst Eve Jung (戎宜蘋) wrote in a research note.
The five companies are Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Wistron Corp (緯創), Inventec Corp (英華達) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩).
Citigroup Global Markets’ equity research team raised its forecast for the growth of third-quarter notebook shipments to 24 percent quarter-on-quarter from 19 percent, Jung said.
She attributed the adjustment to the companies’ strong shipments last month and improving demand from Europe and China.
Because of seasonal factors, many local laptop contract makers reported positive revenue numbers for last month and most saw double-digit shipment growth last month over the previous month, fueled by new model launches.
On Friday, Wistron, a contract manufacturing spin-off of Acer Inc (宏碁), posted NT$37.45 billion (US$1.2 billion) in revenues for last month, marking an increase of 7 percent month-on-month and 59 percent year-on-year.
The company’s notebook shipments last month rose 18 percent from the previous month after it secured larger-than-expected consumer model orders from Acer, Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) and Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想).
Wistron’s notebook shipments could reach well above 6 million units in the third quarter, which translates to a potential quarter-on-quarter growth of 20 percent to 30 percent, Jung said on July 25. For the full year, shipments may grow 91 percent year-on-year to 21.8 million units, outperforming rivals, she said at the time.
Meanwhile, Inventec Corp (英業達) on Friday reported its highest monthly revenue total so far this year, at NT$31.03 billion last month, an increase of 37.6 percent month-on-month and 99 percent year-on-year.
Industry leader Quanta said on Thursday its revenue grew 5.34 percent month-on-month and 6.86 percent year-on-year to NT$63.26 billion last month — driven by increasing MacAir notebook shipments to Apple Inc — ending a three-month decline since April.
Market No. 2 Compal saw revenue grow 23 percent month-on-month to NT$36.9 billion last month, but fall 5 percent year-on-year, the firm reported on Thursday in a stock exchange filing.
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a contract manufacturing unit under Asustek, reported a 22 percent rise in revenues last month from June. The company’s notebook shipments rose by 30 percent to 680,000 units, driven by orders from Lenovo.
Although the US subprime crisis and ensuing macroeconomic slowdown have many experts worried about consumer electronics spending, Jung said she had not seen signs of slowing shipments before next month based on a Citigroup on-site inspection of Taiwan’s notebook supply chain.
“However, we have to highlight that the growth momentum in the third quarter should come mainly from channel inventory building and we still need to watch sell-through risk closely in the fourth quarter as visibility of end demand is still poor,” she said on Friday.
Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業研究所) president Eric Chang (張光平) said last week that notebook business was thriving in emerging markets, which could compensate for the sluggish demand from developed countries.
With many corporations tightening their belts, however, notebook sales to corporate clients may slow down, while sales to consumers may remain stable, Chang told an industry conference on Thursday. Dell and HP are the two companies most susceptible to corporate spending cuts, he said.
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