Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s two largest contract makers of notebook PCs, yesterday forecast 30 to 50 percent growth and 20 percent growth respectively in notebook shipments in the second half of this year from the first half.
Sales from the back-to-school shopping season in the third quarter would not be as good as in past years because of the wait-and-see attitude many buyers have adopted prior to the release of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 operating system, Quanta vice chairman C.C. Leung (梁次震) told the company’s shareholders yesterday.
However, the company’s notebook shipments would increase from this month and the firm was likely to realize its second-quarter shipment goal, Leung said.
Despite the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and flooding in Thailand that interrupted the supply chain for components, the company still made a record-high NT$23.05 billion (US$780.8 million) in profits last year, Quanta chairman Barry Lam (林百里) said.
On Monday, Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said at the company’s annual general meeting that the firm "shared some orders with Quanta," implying that Hon Hai had received orders to assemble MacBook for Apple Inc. Gou’s statement caused market speculation as to whether Apple is planning to place its MacBook orders with both companies instead of just Quanta.
Lam told shareholders that Quanta had been competing for orders on a daily basis for 25 years and that as long as the company maintained its high standards of quality and delivery, there was nothing to be worried about.
Last year Quanta’s consolidated revenue was NT$1.06 trillion and net profit was NT$23.05 billion, with earnings per share of NT$6.02.
Meanwhile, Compal chairman Rock Hsu (許勝雄) said the company’s second-quarter notebook shipments would grow between 8 percent and 10 percent from the first quarter, which is lower than the company's previous estimate of an increase of 15 percent made in April.
Hsu said notebook shipments in the second half of the year were likely to increase 15 percent to 20 percent from the first half and reiterated that the whole year shipments would increase 20 percent from the same period of last year to 48 million units.
In addition, Hsu has also maintained a target for Compal to assemble 7 million TVs for 2012, which represents a 39 percent increase from last year.
Although Compal’s revenue dropped 23 percent and net profit declined 53 percent from last year, the company’s consolidated gross margin of 4.8 percent and net profit margin of 1.9 percent were good compared to its peers, Hsu said at the firm’s annual shareholders meeting yesterday.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
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