Shipments of laptop computers in Taiwan last year continued to gain ground on desktop computer shipments as the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated a work-from-home and remote education trend, market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report yesterday.
A total of 2.44 million personal computers, of which 48.8 percent were laptops, were shipped from Taiwan last year, up 4 percent from a year earlier, IDC data showed.
“The demand for PCs, especially laptops, remained high as a result of COVID-19,” IDC analyst Liu Yi-han (劉伊菡) said in the report. “We predict laptops will overtake desktops by 2021.”
Shipments of commercial laptops would grow by 2 percent this quarter, although the overall PC market would fall by 4.1 percent on an annual basis, IDC said.
For the whole of this year, overall PC shipments from Taiwan are to decline by 2.9 percent year-on-year due to supply chain constraints, it said.
“As the global component shortage continues to affect the PC supply chain, especially laptops, IDC predicts the Taiwanese PC market will go from positive to negative in 2021 and contract by 2.9 percent,” it said.
Shipments of computer monitors last year rose for the fourth consecutive year, up 5 percent year-on-year, IDC said.
However, IDC predicted an overall contraction this year.
“With the rising cost of monitors, most brands will adjust their prices upward this year to maintain profitability,” Liu said. “We predict the Taiwanese monitor market will not be able to sustain last year’s numbers and will contract by 3.3 percent year-on-year.”
A total of 970,000 tablets were shipped from Taiwan last year, a 3.6 percent decline from a year earlier, the report said.
However, commercial tablet shipments rose 106.4 percent to 260,000 units, it said.
The report predicted a further contraction of 9.9 percent to 870,000 units this year for the tablet market.
About 5.46 million smartphones were shipped from Taiwan last year, a 15.3 percent year-on-year contraction, IDC said.
The report said that supply disruption due to the pandemic was to blame for the decline and predicted 6.7 percent year-on-year growth this year.
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