Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s top contract laptop maker, yesterday reported that its monthly revenue had contracted for 13 consecutive months to NT$72.65 billion (US$2.45 billion) last month as mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones continued to eat into the traditional computer market.
Revenue declined 19.17 percent to NT$72.65 billion last month, from NT$89.88 billion a year ago, according to a company statement.
The figure represents 1.28 percent month-on-month growth from NT$71.73 billion in July, hitting the highest level since January.
Quanta said its laptop shipments last month increased 18.7 percent to 3.8 million units, from 3.2 million units in July, beating Citigroup Global Markets Inc’s earlier estimate of 3.5 million units.
As demand for traditional personal computers is expected to heat up during this and the next quarter, Quanta forecast its sales could continue to grow month-on-month through the period to the end of the year, on the back of an increase in laptop orders, Quanta vice chairman CC Leung (梁次震) told investors in a conference call last month.
However, Arthur Liao (廖顯毅), an analyst at Taipei-based Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券), said Quanta is likely to be “profoundly affected” by the rise of tablets, given that up to 85 percent of the Taoyuan-based company’s laptop shipments are consumer-oriented.
Quanta forecast that it would ship a total of 24 million laptops during the second half of the year, which was a higher target than Liao’s projection of 22 million units during the same period.
“We think that Intel Corp’s new central processing unit Haswell and Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8.1 operating system still can’t catch consumers’ eyes. Consumer are likely to focus on Apple’s new iPhone 5S and 5C, as well as low-priced tablets,” Liao said in a report released on Tuesday last week.
Meanwhile, Pegatron Corp (和碩), which makes Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads, yesterday reported 8.69 percent month-on-month decline in revenue for last month to NT$66.6 billion.
On annual basis, that was a 4.19 percent decrease.
The company said its latest monthly sales result was in line with its own forecast.
Separately, Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-largest PC maker by shipments, yesterday said sales last month increased 7.37 percent to NT$30.65 billion from NT$28.55 billion in July.
The figure reflects a 13.77 percent year-on-year drop from NT$35.55 billion a year ago, according to the company’s e-mailed statement.
As a rival of Acer, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the fifth-largest PC vendor in the world, on Monday said sales last month increased to NT$40.89 billion, up 14.3 percent from NT$35.79 billion in July, but down 8.54 percent from NT$44.71 billion a year ago.
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