Worldwide personal-computer shipments rose 11 percent in the second quarter, as lower prices lured customers. Hewlett-Packard Co grew faster than leader Dell Inc, which again lost market share in the US.
Total shipments expanded to 54.9 million units, Stamford, Connecticut-based researcher Gartner Inc said on Wednesday in a statement. Competitor IDC said in a separate statement shipments increased by 9.7 percent.
HP increased its market share by half a percentage point to 15.9 percent from a year earlier, IDC said. Dell kept its No. 1 ranking and boosted its worldwide share slightly by expanding shipments 11 percent, IDC said.
"It's a lot of numbers for Dell, and it's getting harder for them to push that big rock up the hill," IDC researcher Richard Shim said in an interview on Wednesday. "Other vendors are benefiting from the big emphasis on retail, driven by consumer sales, while the commercial market is slowing."
HP, the No. 2 maker, increased its worldwide shipments 13 percent to 8.27 million units, IDC said.
Lenovo Group Ltd (
"Asia Pacific was the growth engine for the entire PC market this quarter," Shim said.
No. 4 Acer Inc had the biggest gain worldwide, IDC said, increasing shipments by 36 percent to 2.8 million units.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said