US investment banks Merrill Lynch & Co and Citigroup have lowered their third-quarter notebook shipment growth estimates for Taiwanese manufacturers for the year.
Merrill Lynch revised its figure from 25 percent to 22 percent, while Citigroup lowered its forecast from 24 percent to 23 percent.
The country’s top five notebook contract makers reported an average month-on-month decline of 6 percent last month, which was lower than market expectations because some shipments were delayed to this month or the fourth quarter.
Out of the five original design manufacturers (ODMs) analyzed, Inventec Co (英業達) led the pack last month, with shipments up 17 percent month-on-month.
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Wistron Corp (緯創) performed the worst in the group — each with shipments down 15 percent — while Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) saw a milder drop of 6 percent.
Since most PC vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc, Acer Inc (宏碁) and Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), are expecting a rise in orders, Citigroup anticipates this month’s notebook shipments from Taiwan’s top-five ODMs will grow 22 percent month-on-month.
Merrill Lynch predicted similar figures for this month.
Both brokerage firms attributed the demand shift toward low-price netbooks to be the main driver of overall notebook shipments and have incorporated netbook shipments into the notebook figures for the top-five ODMs.
The US brokerages both expressed concern over potential restricted supply of plastic casings through the end of the year.
“Even though NB [notebook] ODMs have not seen any major order cuts from PC OEMs yet, NB ODMs are worried that shortage of IMR [industrial molded rubber] plastic casings could be the swing factor for NB shipments in September and October,” Citigroup analyst Eve Jung (戎宜蘋) wrote in a research note on Thursday.
Citigroup also offered a preliminary fourth-quarter forecast, saying that notebook shipments from the top-five NB ODMs would grow 15 percent quarter-on-quarter, with netbook shipments potentially accounting for 11 percent of total shipments next quarter.
Jung said she would revise the figures once there is more visibility next month.
Apart from lowering their third-quarter shipment forecasts, Merrill and Citigroup also revised their third-quarter estimates for motherboard shipments after last month’s shipments dropped 17 percent year-on-year, compared with market forecasts of a 7 percent decline.
Merrill Lynch technology analyst Tony Tseng (曾省吾) said yesterday motherboard shipments would only grow 9 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter, primarliy because of the continued consumer trend toward ultra-mobile netbooks.
Jung was slightly more optimistic about motherboard shipments, forecasting 12 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the third quarter, compared with a historical average of 21.6 percent growth quarter-on-quarter.
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