Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's top PC vendor, plans to launch its first lower-priced laptop computers in April, a company executive said in Taipei yesterday.
HP's announcement follows world No. 3 Acer Inc's announcement last week that it would unveil low-cost notebook computers this summer.
Both PC heavyweights were conservative about notebooks last year until Asustek Computer Inc's (
"HP plans to sell small-screen notebook computers in the second quarter, making its product portfolio more complete in terms of retail price," said Dennis Chen (
HP's new "mininote" serie, outfitted with a small-than-9-inch LCD screen, would include entry-level, middle-range and high-end models, Chen said.
The series is part of HP's new products for emerging markets, which are aimed at expanding its growth outside of standard PC market, HP said.
The "mininote" laptops will be outfitted with an small-screen liquid-crystal-display (LCD) screen, bigger than Eee PC's 7-inch screen, and will be also equipped with mainstream specifications such as Microsoft Corp's operating system and Intel Inc's processors.
HP declined to identify its target users or price range for the "mininote" series.
But Acer, which plans to debut its first lower-priced notebook with a Microsoft system and 8.9-inch screen by June, said its price would be much lower than NT$20,000 per unit.
Quanta Computer (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics (仁寶), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Inventec Corp (英業達) are major suppliers to HP.
Shipments of low-cost laptops are expected to reach 15 million units from Taiwanese notebook computer makers this year, making up around 13 percent of total laptop shipments, Taipei-based researcher Topology Research Institute (
"Low-cost PCs are likely to become the product most PC vendors have to sell this year," Topology PC industry analyst Jane Tseng (曾筱軫) said.
Since Eee PC's October launch, Asustek has sold 380,000 units at a minimum price of less than US$200 per unit. Asustek aims to sell 3.5 million to 5 million units this year, largely to children, young women and the elderly.
Tseng said corporate users such as logistics and insurance companies would be potential buyers of HP's new lower-priced notebooks.
As a whole, Topology said it is positive about the notebook computer industry this year as it expects the sub-prime credit crisis in the US will only have a minor impact on the sector.
Notebook computer shipments from local manufacturers are expected to grow by 18 percent to 23 percent at annual rate to between 110 million and 120 million units, compared to last year's 93 million, Topology said.
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS