Contract notebook computer maker Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday reported better-than-expected sales last month, but may see sales of its notebook products drop this month because of decreasing demand in the slow season, analysts said yesterday.
However, Wistron could still register a mild increase of 3 percent in sales this quarter from last quarter due to notebook computer orders from Acer Inc (宏碁) and Dell Inc, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co analysts (元大投顧) said.
Wistron is the world’s third-largest contract laptop maker after Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) in terms of sales. The company also sells LCD TVs, desktops, smart handhelds and LCD monitors.
Last month, the company saw sales of NT$61.44 billion (US$2.01 billion), up 4.89 percent year-on-year and 27.9 percent month-on-month, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“The increase in sales last month was mainly due to PC products orders from Acer and Dell,” Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co analyst Vincent Chen (陳豐丰) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
Chen said Wistron also obtained iPhone 5C orders from Apple Inc last month, at a time when the major system assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) was busy with new iPhone 6 Plus business.
“Overall, the nearly 5 percent increase in sales last month from a year earlier is actually better than the 2 percent growth we expected,” Chen said.
However, the company’s sales momentum appears weak this month as the industry is entering the slow season. Sales for last quarter totaled NT$155.79 billion, up 14.7 percent from NT$135.82 billion in the previous quarter.
Still, Wistron’s notebook business would perform relatively better than its local peers because of Acer and Dell orders, Yuanta analyst April Chang (張詠涵) said.
In the first nine months of the year, Wistron’s cumulative sales totaled NT$417.42 billion on a consolidated basis, down 13.21 percent compared with NT$480.96 billion in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, smaller rival Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday reported sales of NT$36.77 billion for last month, down 22.66 percent year-on-year, but up 17.46 month-on-month.
In a separate stock exchange filing, Inventec said its third-quarter sales fell 3.39 percent to NT$101.33 billion from the second quarter’s NT$104.89 billion.
Consolidated sales from January through last month reached NT$322.89 billion, down 1.07 percent from NT$326.41 billion in the same period of last year, the filing showed.
Apart from notebooks, Inventec’s product lineup also includes handsets, servers, data centers and solar power equipment.
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