Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) yesterday reported sales fell 11.81 percent quarter-on-quarter, but grew 2 percent year-on-year to NT$170.57 billion (US$5.66 billion) last quarter.
The quarterly drop was attributable to seasonal factors, but was “largely in line with the company’s expectation,” Compal’s investor relations official Tina Chang (張妍婷) said by telephone.
“The company’s sales momentum appeared strong at the end of last quarter,” Chang said. “Our clients expect demand for notebooks to take off from this month.”
The increasing orders came as some of its clients were preparing to enter a new product cycle this quarter, while others were anticipating growing replacement demand for PCs, Chang said, referring to Microsoft ending its technical support for the Windows XP operating system this week.
The contract notebook maker’s sales hit a record level of NT$67.58 billion last month, up 36.49 percent month-on-month and 4.37 percent year-on-year, its filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
Compal’s laptop shipments totaled 10.3 million units in the first quarter, Chang said.
The firm aims to grow laptop shipments by 5 percent annually to 42.5 million units this year, she said.
Notebook maker Wistron Corp (緯創) saw first-quarter sales decline quarterly and annually.
Sales dropped 12 percent quarter-on-quarter and 20.49 percent year-on-year to NT$125.81 billion last quarter.
Last month alone, sales rebounded to a six-month high of NT$51.17 billion, Wistron public relations director Joyce Chou (周文玲) said.
Wistron’s laptop shipments decreased 21 percent to 4.5 million units last quarter from the previous quarter. The company’s desktop shipments also decreased 1.23 percent sequentially to 4 million units last quarter, while its smart device shipments dropped by 28 percent to 3.3 million units.
Separately, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said first-quarter sales totaled NT$110.33 billion, down 7.65 percent from the previous quarter and 3.25 percent less than the same period last year.
The results came after Asustek said its sales rose for the third straight month to NT$38.62 billion last month, reflecting a 5.5 percent increase from February and a 7.17 percent decline from a year ago.
On Feb. 14, Asustek said it expected its notebook shipments to drop to 4.8 million units last quarter from 5.5 million units the previous quarter.
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