Stronger-than-expected shipments of notebook computers by tier-one Taiwanese contract makers last month appeared to foretell a promising outlook for this quarter, Citigroup said.
Last month, the country’s top five notebook original design manufacturers (ODMs) shipped a combined 11.67 million units of notebooks, up slightly from 11.65 million units in July, Citigroup said in a research note on Thursday, citing data collected from companies.
The top five laptop ODMs are Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Inventec Co (英業達), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Pegatron Technology Corp (和碩).
Pegatron is a wholly owned contract-manufacturing unit of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩).
Last month’s figures were better than the market expected, the US brokerage said, citing strong demand for netbook computers — a smaller and low-cost version of traditional laptops.
“We estimate September shipments from these ODMs will rise 12 percent month-on-month, thanks to new models and increasing orders from Acer (宏碁), Hewlett Packard, and Dell,” Citigroup analyst Eve Jung (戎宜蘋) wrote in the note.
Jung said the brokerage’s shipment forecast of 13.05 million units from top Taiwanese ODMs this month would be 13 percent higher than a year earlier, and she expected growth momentum at these ODMs to persist this month and extend into next month, the note showed.
With seasonal factors such as back-to-school demand and an anticipated purchase of new models powered by Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, contract notebook makers have been positive on third-quarter shipments.
Microsoft is scheduled to launch the new operating system worldwide on Oct. 22.
Earlier this month, Compal, the world’s second-largest contract notebook maker, said it expected third-quarter notebook shipments to rise at least 20 percent from the second quarter of 7.96 million units, up from its previous forecast of an increase of between 15 percent and 20 percent.
Quanta, the world’s largest contract notebook maker, said last month that its notebook shipments would rise by more than 20 percent in the third quarter, from 7.9 million units in the preceding three-month period.
As a result, Citigroup forecast the combined notebook shipments from Taiwan’s top five contract makers would reach 36.37 million units in the quarter from July to this month, up 24 percent from the previous quarter and 16 percent from one year ago, a research note showed.
This forecast represented an upward adjustment from the brokerage’s previous estimates on Aug. 10, when it said the combined shipments would reach 35.4 million units in the third quarter, up 21 percent quarter-on-quarter and 13 percent year-on-year.
As for notebook shipments in the final quarter of the year, Citigroup expects the nation’s top five ODM makers to ship a total of 40.8 million units, up 12 percent quarter-on-quarter and 31 percent year-on-year.
However, Jung cautioned contract makers against a tight supply of key components and a lack of sufficient labor force in the short term.
The problem of component shortage — especially optical disc drives, for instance — is likely to “extend into October,” she warned.
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