Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s largest contract laptop maker, yesterday reported that sales rose to a 13-month high of NT$98.39 billion (US$3.33 billion) last month as a result of increased shipments of tablet devices.
Last month’s sales reflect a 25.25 percent growth from NT$78.55 billion in October and a 9.77 percent increase from last year’s NT$89.63 billion, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“Most clients increased their orders to meet year-end holiday demand, with the increase in orders for tablets and servers larger than that for laptops, particularly in the US and European markets,” an investor relationship official at Quanta said.
Quanta counts Apple Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc, Sony Corp and Toshiba Corp among its main clients.
The company last month shipped a total of 4.4 million units of laptops, up 18.91 percent from 3.7 million units in the previous month, but down 4.34 percent from 4.6 million units a year ago, the company said.
However, cumulative laptop shipments contracted 21.76 percent to 39.12 million units during the first 11 months of the year, from 50 million units during the same period of last year, due to a rise in popularity of mobile devices.
As a result, Quanta’s cumulative sales during the 11-months period shrank 16.18 percent to NT$785.81 billion from NT$937.46 billion a year ago.
For this month, Quanta forecast sales would decrease from last month’s NT$98.39 billion because of clients’ inventory adjustments and reduced orders for laptops.
In a separate filing, Pegatron Corp (和碩), the world’s fifth-largest contract laptop maker, said sales last month totaled NT$90.43 billion, up 0.48 percent month-on-month, but down 3.82 percent year-on-year.
Laptop shipments were in the range of 1.3 to 1.4 million units last month, up from 1.2 million to 1.3 million units in the previous month, but were flat from the year-earlier level, said Tsai Ming-chun (蔡明純), deputy director of Pegatron’s finance and accounting department.
“Overall, the PC market remains slack, and that’s why the company’s total laptop shipments last month flattened at the same level from a year ago,” she said by telephone.
From January through last month, Pegatron’s cumulative sales increased 8.6 percent year-on-year to NT$862.15 billion on robust sales of tablets by clients including Apple, the company’s filing showed.
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