Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world’s largest notebook computer original design manufacturer service supplier, said yesterday it might not meet its notebook shipment target for the fourth quarter of this year because of weakening global demand.
Quanta said its shipments during this quarter were also affected by a hard-disk drive shortage because of serious flooding in Thailand, a major supplier of the component.
The firm said it expected fourth-quarter shipments to fall below the 14.5 million units shipped in the July-to-September period, after having projected shipments to stay level quarter-on-quarter.
Quanta’s shipments fell to 4.4 million units last month from 5.3 million units in October.
The company said demand this month has been even weaker than last month, leaving it pessimistic about hitting the 14.5 million units target.
For the year as a whole, Quanta said its shipments are expected to reach the lower end of its target range of an increase of betweeen 5 percent and 10 percent from the 52.1 million units shipped last year.
In the first 11 months of the year, Quanta posted sales of NT$989.52 billion (US$32.66 billion), down 0.6 percent from a year earlier, with notebook shipments at 51.6 million.
Quanta’s latest warning echoed US chipmaker Intel Corp’s recent downgrade of its sales forecast for the fourth quarter. The US company cited weakening global PC demand and PC production disruptions caused by disk-drive shortages as factors behind the lower estimate.
Last week, Barclays Capital also lowered its year-on-year growth forecast for this year’s global PC shipments to only 2.2 percent from 3.4 percent, citing the weakest fourth-quarter demand for the past 10 years. It said notebook shipments would fall 2 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter, far worse than the normal seasonality of 14 percent growth.
Quanta said that because the global economic slowdown is likely to continue casting a shadow over the PC sector, it remains cautious over prospects for the first quarter of next year.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
RSS