Researchers from securities firms and industry groups warned against false hope that demand for personal computers is on the rise yesterday, saying surging orders for Taiwanese computer parts could be transmitting the wrong signal.
ING Barings and the government-funded Institute for Information Industry, in separate instances, said rising orders for some products could create false hope for a PC industry turnaround when in fact none is in sight.
According to the ING Barings, the rise in computer motherboard sales registered at Taiwan's "big four" motherboard makers are a sign of consolidation within the industry and not a sign of surging PC demand.
Motherboards are circuit boards upon which a computer's vital components are snapped together, including the CPU and memory chips. Since no computer is sold without one, many industry watchers look to motherboard sales as an indicator of rising demand for PCs.
Taiwan's top four motherboard makers, Elitegroup Computer Systems Co Ltd (
The Elite Group, for example, reported record monthly sales of NT$2.81 billion, up by 59 percent year-on-year. Asustek, considered the top motherboard firm in Taiwan, saw year-on-year sales figures fall, but increased September sales by 14 percent over last month.
"We have seen some definite growth in demand from Europe," said Anna Chang, a spokeswoman at Elitegroup in Taipei. She said the company believes demand grew by 10 to 20 percent in Europe, pushing up sales despite the negative impact of two local typhoons and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the US.
These new orders could be coming at the expense of competitors, and not as a result of new orders, according to ING Barings. The local motherboard industry has been consolidating for the past few years, with bigger players taking market share away from second and third tier manufacturers.
During an interview earlier this year, Benson Chang (張文忠), vice president of marketing at Gigabyte, predicted the 15 Taiwanese motherboard makers still in business today would be cut down to 10 by the end of this year, and only half of those would continue to grow.
A few years ago, there were about 40 companies making the products.
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