Notebook computer contract manufacturers Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Co (仁寶) yesterday reported annual declines in sales for last month, with Inventec trimming its quarterly shipment growth for PC products due to weaker-than-expected demand.
Inventec’s sales fell 18.1 percent to NT$28.45 billion (US$908.9 million), while Compal’s revenue dropped 5.08 percent to NT$64.54 billion, according the companies’ filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
On a monthly basis, Inventec’s sales declined 8.31 percent from the April’s NT$31.03 billion.
“Due to the continued weak demand across the board in PC-related products, we predict that quarterly shipment growth will be 15 percent to 20 percent, compared with our previous forecast of 20 percent to 30 percent,” Inventec chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao (游進寶) told the Taipei Times.
For this month, Inventec expects sales and PC-related product shipments to improve, Yu said, adding that shipments for servers and mobile devices will also grow from last month.
Overall, revenue for this quarter is likely to be flat from last quarter’s NT$89.3 billion, due to weak demand for PC-related products such as notebooks and tablets, he said.
Yu said Inventec’s new factory in India is to become operational at the beginning of next quarter as scheduled, with the firm planning to initially focus on manufacturing PC-related products.
Unlike Inventec, Compal’s sales grew 4.72 percent from the previous month’s NT$61.63 billion.
Compal said its notebook business, which accounted for 78 percent of the firm’s total revenues, improved from a month earlier, with shipments jumping 19.23 percent to 3.1 million units from 2.6 million units.
The firm said that its PC supply chain had begun manufacturing new products, despite the launch of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 10 operating system scheduled for July 29 causing buyers to put off purchasing PC products this quarter.
“We maintained the guidance that the notebook shipments for this quarter would post double-digit percent growth from 9.3 million units last quarter,” a Compal official, who declined to be named, told reporters.
Inventec shares dropped 1.86 percent to NT$21.1 in Taipei trading yesterday, while Compal declined 3.69 percent to NT$23.5, compared with the TAIEX’s loss of 1.88 percent.
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