Taiwan's Contract NB PC makers Rake in Booming Sales in March

Taipei, April 16, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan's leading contract manufacturers of notebook computers, including Quanta Computer Inc. and Wistron Corp., saw booming sales in March. Domestic institutional investors predicted domestic NB contract manufacturing industry will see shipments continue to grow at the pace of 10% up to 15% year-on-year in the second quarter of this year.

Quanta, the world's top-notch contract manufacturer of NBs, said it registered NT$75.9 billion (US$2.48 billion at US$1:NT$30.5) in sales in March, up 45% year-on-year and up 28.7% from the preceding month and hitting a third-highest record in history. The company shipped three million units of NBs in March.

The company had cumulative sales of NT$202.6 billion (US$7.23 billion) in first quarter of this year, representing a year-on-year growth of 38.6%. But the company saw shipments decline 15% to reach eight million units in March from 9.4 million units posted in the fourth quarter of last year.

Quanta predicted it would be able to grab a 5% up to 10% growth in shipment in the second quarter from the preceding quarter. In addition to orders for NBs, Quanta has also received orders for low-price PCs. There is a rumor that the company has taken orders for one million units of low-price computers from Acer Inc. and will begin fulfill the orders from the second quarter of this year.

Thanks to the increased orders from such big brands as Apple, Hewlett Packard and Toshiba, Quanta is expected to see annual shipments grow 19% up to 25% year-on-year this year.

Because of its efforts to control production costs and contribution of shareholdings on AU Optronics Corp., Quanta will see net operating earnings reach NT$6 (US$0.196) per share on sales of NT$880 billion (US$28.85 billion) this year.

Thanks to the injection of orders from such big clients as Acer, Hewlett Packard and Dell Computer, Wistron Corp. saw shipments of PCs grow at a pace faster than anticipated in the first quarter.

The company said it shipped 250,000 units of LCD (liquid crystal display) TVs in the first quarter of this year. Due to the injection of orders from the Japan-based Sony Corp., the company predicted it would see shipments of LCD TVs reach between 350,000 and 400,000 units in the second quarter.

Inventec Corp. another NB manufacturer in Taiwan, noted it registered NT$21.823 billion (US$715.5 million) in sales in March, up 3.089% year-on-year and up 5.18% from the preceding month. The company had cumulative sales of NT$66.023 billion (US$2.16 billion) in the first quarter, up 13.49% year-on-year. The company predicted it would see shipments grow over 10% in the second quarter from the preceding quarter.

Inventec said it would be able to ship between 12 million and 13 million units of NBs this year, up 30% from the year earlier.