Taiwan’s Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) are expected to increase their market share in all markets in the second half of the year despite slowing demand for personal computers, JPMorgan said in a report yesterday.
“Asustek and Lenovo are likely to be the fastest off the block for Windows 8-based products, which could accelerate share gains starting in the fourth quarter,” JP-Morgan analysts Gokul Hariharan, Alvin Kwock (郭彥麟) and Ashish Gupta said in the report.
In contrast, both Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co will face declining market share in the second half because of their “relative lack of focus on PCs and slower time to market in new products,” the analysts said.
Meanwhile, Acer Inc (宏碁) could also see further share losses given the Taiwanese company “notably doesn’t figure as a leading partner for Microsoft in Windows,” they said.
The JPMorgan report came after Microsoft Corp announced a day earlier that Asustek, Lenovo, Dell and Samsung Electronics Co would make computers running on Microsoft’s Windows RT operating system.
The worldwide PC market was mostly flat in the first half from a year earlier, as consumers remained reluctant to purchase PCs amid technology transition and slowing economies, while waiting for new product launches by the end of the year, according to statistics compiled by International Data Corp.
Global PC shipments totaled 173.84 million units in the first six months of this year, up 1.09 percent from 171.96 million units in the same period last year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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