Worldwide notebook shipments are forecast to grow 4.3 percent this quarter from last quarter, driven largely by back-to-school demand and Microsoft Corp’s push for low-priced notebook models, Digitimes Research said yesterday.
Other than seasonal factors, rising replacement demand stimulated by Microsoft’s ending its support of the Windows XP operating system and PC firms’ new product launches in the next two months are also key drivers, Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien (簡佩萍) said in a report.
The market researcher said the notebook computer market for this quarter would be better than a year earlier, but detachable notebooks were not covered in Digitimes Research’s latest market analysis.
However, the growth may not be sustained next quarter, mainly because some major players have changed their product strategies, she said.
“Global notebook computer shipments are projected to shrink 1.1 percent sequentially next quarter as Hewlett-Packard Co plans to adopt a more conservative business strategy next year,” Chien said. “That will cool down sales momentum for the October-to-December period, which is conventionally a peak season in the notebook market.”
Digitimes Research did not provide a forecast for global notebook computer shipments this year, saying only that the full-year shipment split would be 48.7-51.3 for the first half and the second half.
Digitimes Research said China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) would likely ship the same amount of notebook computers during the July-to-December period from the same period last year, owing to weakening demand in China and market share loss to HP in the category of corporate and education laptop models.
Taiwan’s Acer Inc (宏碁) could remain the only notebook brand that is set to see up to 30 percent shipment growth during the second half of the year from the first half or from the same period last year, according to the report, without elaborating.
In terms of the contract notebook business, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s No. 2 contract laptop computer maker, would ship more products than its larger rival Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) this quarter and next quarter, Digitimes Research said.
That is because HP redistributed its orders last quarter and because orders from Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba Corp all increased this quarter, Chien said.
Quanta and Compal, the top two contract notebook manufacturers, are forecast to obtain nearly 70 percent of the market next quarter, according to Digitimes Research.
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