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Merrill revises up third-quarter PC shipment forecast

By Elizabeth Tchii
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Aug 16, 2008, Page 12

Merrill Lynch (美林證券) has raised its personal-computer (PC) shipment forecast for the third quarter in light of better-than-expected growth in notebook shipments last month.

The US-based investment bank raised its third-quarter shipment forecast for PCs — covering both motherboards and notebook computers — to 21 percent, up from its previous estimate of 17 percent, quarter-on-quarter in a report released on Thursday.

The company revised upward its third-quarter notebook shipment growth forecast to 25 percent quarter-on-quarter, from the previous 19 percent. It also raised its motherboard shipment outlook by 3 percentage points to 18 percent, the report said.

DEMAND RECOVERY

The bank expects overall PC shipment to expand because of the “strength in notebooks, solid demand for desktop PCs from emerging markets, a demand recovery in China, improved component supply, the ramp of netbook models and desktops using Intel’s new platform (P4X series),” the report said.

Netbooks refer to small laptops that are designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet.

Taiwanese PC shipments last month rose 17 percent year-on-year, surpassing Merrill Lynch’s estimate of 12 percent.

Specifically, notebook shipments surged 46 percent year-on-year, while motherboards declined 2 percent year-on-year. Merrill Lynch had estimated that notebook shipments would rise 38 percent, while motherboards would drop 6 percent.

Backed by the continuing trend toward “mobility, as well as the introduction and popularity of netbooks, notebook growth continued to offset the decline in motherboards,” wrote Tony Tseng (曾省吾), a technology analyst at Merrill Lynch.

BENEFICIARIES

Taiwanese original design manufacturers (ODM) and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) that are expected to directly benefit from this PC shipment growth are Quanta Computers (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics (仁寶電腦), Wistron Corp (緯創), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Pegatron Technology (和碩聯合科技), the report said.

Tseng’s recent Taiwanese supplier checks showed that Wistron and Quanta benefited from the growth in sales of Dell’s consumer notebook model. However, Compal, which supplies about 40 percent of Dell’s notebooks, was affected by weak sales of the US vendor’s corporate notebooks.

Among Taiwanese notebook suppliers for Hewlett-Packard. Compal and Wistron posted shipment increases month-on-month, while Quanta experienced flattish sales, Tseng wrote.

MINI NOTE

Tseng added that Hewlett-Packard was ramping up its Mini Note orders at Inventec as the US firm pushed its netbook offering in the consumer segment.

Quanta, Apple’s local notebook supplier, reported notebook shipment growth of 14 percent month-on-month in line with Merrill Lynch’s estimate, the report said.

Since Apple is expected to refresh its notebook models in September, Quanta expects positive order trends going forward, it said.
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