Contract notebook computer maker Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday said its consolidated sales for the first quarter rose 15.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$116.68 billion (US$3.89 billion) on the back of deferred orders from its major clients from the second half of last year.
However, the total still fell 13.33 percent from the previous quarter due to the effects of the traditionally slow season.
The company said as the number of working days last month returned to normal compared with February, its notebook computer shipments totaled 1.7 million units last month, up 30.77 percent from a month earlier.
As global PC demand remains slow, the company has been gearing up to diversify its product portfolio to offset the impact from a weakness in the PC market.
The company said its server shipments are expected to benefit from a raft of stable orders from international brands and that it is possible servers could account for more than 25 percent of its total sales this year.
In addition, solar energy product sales could double this year to make up 2 percent to 3 percent of the company’s total revenue, while sales generated from handheld devices could grow about 10 percent this year from last year.
Bigger rival Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s top contract notebook computer maker by shipments, yesterday said its sales reached NT$215.83 billion in the January-to-March quarter, down 20.5 percent from the previous quarter, but up 9.39 percent from a year ago, while Pegatron Corp (和碩), the world’s fifth-largest contract laptop maker, said total sales in the first quarter were NT$217.88 billion, down 18.1 percent quarter-on-quarter, but up 0.14 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, PC vendor Acer Inc (宏碁) said its sales declined for the eighth straight month to NT$30.79 billion last month, causing its quarterly sales to slide 16.42 percent year-on-year to NT$76.73 billion — the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2006.
UBS Securities has added Acer to its least-preferred shares among Taiwan’s technology companies, saying it expects the company’s strategy to transform into a hardware-plus-software and service company would not take effect immediately.
“It’s unclear to us whether Acer can benefit from cloud computing,” UBS said in a note yesterday. “We believe Acer may lose further market share before it comes up with attractive new products.”
Additional reporting by Helen Ku
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