Prices wars between global personal digital assistants (PDA) sellers such as Dell Computer Corp, Toshiba Corp and Viewsonic Corp has bought in slim profit margins for local electronics makers, industry analysts said yesterday.
"In order to expand market shares, an increasing number of global PDA brands are axing retail prices, and therefore the profit margin for Taiwanese contract makers is getting cut as well," said Ken Ko (
VIEWSONIC
Ko said Taiwanese PDA contract makers has no longer enjoyed good profit margins. High Tech Computer Corp (
Ko made the comments in response to the news that the US-based Viewsonic, a global display seller, is expected to start selling a super-cheap PDA model early next month.
"We plan to sell our first PDA at a very competitive price -- US$299 or some NT$10,000," said Gorden Huang (
Mitac has been appointed as the first partner to make PDA for Viewsonic.
Other companies also try to lure consumers with bargains.
Early this year, Japan-based Toshiba cut its PDA prices from more than US$500 to US$399, while Dell also plans to, by the end of the year, put products on shelves at US$299.
Both Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Wistron Inc (緯創資通) have been making contract PDAs for Toshiba and Dell respectively since early this year. Other Taiwanese notebook makers such as Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), Inventec Corp (英業達), and Mitac International Corp (神達電腦) have also started their own PDA manufacturing endeavors for global brands since mid last year.
According to Market Intelligence Center, a government funded IT research center, in 2002 Taiwan is set to ship out 3.15 million PDAs, accounting for nearly 15 percent of the global PDA production volume.
But the global demand for PDAs is not very positive this year, said Martha Chen (
"In the second quarter of the year, the global PDA sales reported a 10 percent drop compared to the same period last year," she said.
Despite contract makers' concern over the skinny profit margins following the recent price cuts by global brand names, their sales may go up to complement makers' dwindling margins, Chen said.
"As long as the contract orders [get] bigger, local makers' bottom lines won't get hurt," she said, hinting as more and more international computer-related companies start to join the PDA business, opportunities in the local makers would increase as well.
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