Buoyed by improved consumer sentiment and market demand, the nation’s top five PC contract makers are expected to ship a total of 9.56 million units next month, which represents a 7.7 percent increase over this month, Merrill Lynch said earlier this week.
Shipments from the five companies — Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Inventec Co (英業達), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Pegatron Corp (和碩) — should total 27.59 million units in the second quarter, up 11 percent from the first quarter and 9 percent from a year ago, Merrill Lynch said in a report on Wednesday.
NEW MODELS
Local PC companies will demonstrate netbook models with new hardware and operating systems, notebooks supported by the consumer ultra low voltage (CULV) platform and all-in-one PCs at next week’s Computex fair.
Manufacturers have high hopes this year’s Computex will help boost orders for later this year.
But Merrill Lynch said in the report that squeezed margins at international PC vendors would likely increase pressure on the Taiwanese supply chain in the second half of the year.
The report attributed the shrinking profitability of major PC brands to the continued fall in the average selling prices of notebooks, which is expected to extend into the third quarter; the rising prices of liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and, most importantly, lukewarm consumer demand.
REVIEW
Merrill Lynch will “review the PC sector later this year when expectations have been lowered and we have better visibility of platform transitions at Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp in particular,” Taipei-based analyst Tony Tseng (曾省吾) wrote in the report.
As for local PC component suppliers, Merrill Lynch expected revenues this month to be flat or fall month-on-month, hurt by PC shipment shortfalls last month and this month.
The shortfalls were the result of companies ramping up new models slowly, tight component supplies for optical digital discs and LCDs and the appreciation of the NT dollar against the greenback, the report said.
“Chicony Electronics Co [群光] and Pegatron have both lowered their second-quarter guidance from 20 percent growth to 15 percent quarter-on-quarter. We are therefore trimming our second-quarter estimate [in the component sector] from 12 percent growth to 11 percent quarter-on-quarter,” the report said.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS