Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s second-largest contract maker of notebook PCs, yesterday said it was raising contract manufacturing prices for clients to reflect rising costs of components, which are in tight supply after the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
The shortage of raw materials caused a supply squeeze on components, and Compal has to pass the cost to clients, company president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) told reporters yesterday.
“Prices for raw materials such as copper used in printed circuit boards and cables have gone up. We started to notice a shortage this month for components such as hard disks, optical drives and DRAM,” Chen said.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit northeast Japan last month damaged factories and disrupted power to raw material suppliers, prompting fears of a six-month disruption to the tech supply chain.
Raw materials for devices like semiconductors and touch screen panels are especially hard to come by after the calamity. Last month, electronics manufacturers in Taiwan nervously contacted their suppliers in Japan while tapping sources elsewhere.
Compal has started to tap second sources for material supplies to minimize the impact of the quake, Chen said.
The contract maker said its notebook shipments in the second quarter were expected to rise by 10 percent from the first, which hit -bottom as its major client Acer Inc (宏碁) placed fewer PC orders.
Acer, one of the world’s top three PC brands, last week said it was mulling a price hike for its laptops during the second half of the year.
The company’s PC inventory would last until the middle of next month and a price hike was likely unless the supply squeeze from Japan is relieved, it said.
According to Macquarie Research analyst Daniel Chang (張博淇), Compal should see sequential growth of notebook shipments fall by 6 percent to 9 percent this quarter, instead of the equities house’s earlier forecast of 10 percent.
This is because Acer has revised downward shipments of lower-margin netbook PCs, and Dell Inc faces power IC shortages for commercial laptops.
“However, we believe the new tablet PC orders from Acer and Lenovo Group (聯想), which fall in the range of 600,000 to 1 million units, will help Compal’s revenue to grow 10 percent in the second quarter,” Chang wrote.
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