Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s No. 2 contract notebook computer maker, yesterday said it expects its total shipments to grow more than 10 percent year-on-year to 90 million units this year, driven by growing demand for non-notebook products.
“The non-notebook segment is definitely going to contribute more than 30 percent revenue this year, compared with last year’s contribution of 26 percent,” Compal president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) told a press conference before the firm’s annual weiya (尾牙) banquet for its employees at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei.
He said shipments from new business units, such as servers, wearable products and Internet of Things products, would grow significantly to 5.6 million units from last year’s about 1 million units.
Photo: CNA
Shipments of tablets are expected to climb from last year largely on the back of the market share gains by Compal’s three tablet clients, Chen said.
However, the company is conservative about its smartphone shipments this year due to an uncertain outlook for the industry, he said.
“Compal’s smartphone segment failed to achieve our shipments goal last year, due to some clients changing their orders because of global soft demand,” he said. “In light of this, we are conservative about the outlook for the segment this year.”
Driven by the tablet shipments, Chen said Compal’s smart device segment, which includes smartphones, is expected to see its shipments surge more than 12 percent from last year’s 37 million units to 41.5 million units.
Chen also expects higher TV shipments this year, after the company last year took over Toshiba Corp’s TV business in North America and Europe.
Notebook computers still accounted for 74 percent of the firm’s annual revenue of NT$847.22 billion (US$25.06 billion) last year and the segment’s shipments are expected to be flat from last year’s 40 million units, Chen said.
Due to some small clients’ falling shipments of notebook products, Compal reported an 8 percent decline in notebook shipments last year from the previous year as they fell in tandem with slowing global laptop shipments, he said.
Compal expects global notebook industry shipments to fall 5 percent year-on-year this year, but the company hopes its notebook business can buck the trend by forging closer relationships with large clients and devising a better product mix.
“Compal is focusing more on commercial notebooks, gaming notebooks and two-in-one models,” Chen said.
In an effort to enhance operational efficiency, Compal is to integrate its notebook segment’s research and development division and its global operations division this year, he said.
The company also plans to continue investing in industrial automation to better manage costs, Chen said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Nvidia Corp’s GB300 platform is expected to account for 70 to 80 percent of global artificial intelligence (AI) server rack shipments this year, while adoption of its next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is to gradually gain momentum after the third quarter of the year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said. Servers based on Nvidia’s GB300 chips entered mass production last quarter and they are expected to become the mainstay models for Taiwanese server manufacturers this year, Trendforce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) said in an interview. This year is expected to be a breakout year for AI servers based on a variety of chips, as
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS