The demand for work-from-home and e-learning devices triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has driven strong consumption of notebook computers, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note on Friday.
Overall notebook shipments should see an upside in the second half of the year, mostly on Chromebook demand based on Yuanta’s channel checks, with global Chromebook shipments likely to increase by nearly 100 percent year-on-year, mainly because of demand from the US and Japan, it said.
Given that Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) has a more than 60 percent share of the Chromebook original design manufacturing (ODM) business, coupled with strong demand for Macbooks that is expected for the second half of the year, Quanta is likely to see higher annual growth in notebook shipments than other ODM firms, Yuanta analyst Harvey Kao (高啟瑋) said.
Quanta, the leading contract laptop maker, is forecast to ship 51 million notebooks, up from 35 million units last year, Kao said.
Since Quanta has decided to drop its loss-making wearable product line and diversify into more smart devices with other leading US clients, its product mix and profitability are expected to improve over the long term, he said.
“Going forward, with more educational tools adopted for e-learning and the higher possibility of accidental damage to notebooks among students, procurement and replacement demand for laptops should see stable growth in the coming years,” Kao said.
Quanta reported that revenue last month grew 0.13 percent monthly and 18.41 percent annually to NT$93.47 billion (US$3.16 billion), with laptop shipments rising 10.64 percent from May and 52.94 percent from a year earlier to 5.2 million units, company data showed.
Second-quarter revenue increased 42.02 percent from the first quarter and 9.96 percent higher than a year earlier to NT$270.22 billion, with laptop shipments surging by 98.63 percent from the previous quarter to 14.5 million units, or 66.67 percent higher than a year ago, the Quanta data showed.
Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧) attributed the second-quarter growth to robust laptop and server shipments, and said the work-from-home and e-learning trends would extend into the third quarter, boosting Chromebook and cloud server demand.
“The company’s Chromebook orders are expected to remain strong this quarter, while shipments of servers are likely to maintain double-digit percentage growth this year,” Jih Sun researcher Satin Lin (林子楹) said in a separate note on Monday last week.
In a research report issued on July 9, International Data Corp (IDC) said consumers bought more PCs — including Chromebooks — in the second quarter as students and employees stayed home to minimize the spread of the coronavirus, pushing global PC shipments up 11.2 percent annually to 72.3 million units.
However, IDC said that strong computer sales last quarter only reflected short-term business needs and online education demand amid the pandemic.
“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement. “What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continue during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen.”
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new