Taiwan Supplies Over 90% of Global NB PCs Sales in Q2

Taipei, Sept. 1, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan's notebook PC manufacturing sector supplied over 90%, or 25.33 million units, of notebook PCs sold in the world in the second quarter of this year, up 4.5% from a quarter earlier and 42% from a year earlier, according to statistics compiled by IDC (International Data Corp.)

In the second quarter, the sector also generated production value of NT$14.81 billion, up 38.5% from a year earlier, with Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., Wistron Corp., Inventec Corp. and Pegatron Corp. as top five companies in the line.

IDC noted that Intel's decision to postpone launch of its newest platform Centrino 2 and inflation crunch in some countries of the world caused consumer demand for notebook PCs to languish in the second quarter. Consequently, Taiwanese notebook PC makers' shipment performance was lower than expected by market observers.

Worthy mentioning is that Taiwan's notebook PC suppliers have also suffered declines in their shipment to Europe over the past few quarters, according to IDC.

However, the good news for Taiwan suppliers is that prolonged shortages of battery cells for notebook PCs are expected to be solved in the remaining months of the year. In fact, tight supply of battery cells has continued since the end of last year, which has particularly undermined shipment performance of small and medium-sized suppliers. To counter the deficiency, several leading notebook PC brands, like Dell, have moved to apply lithium-ion polymer batteries, instead of traditional lithium batteries, in their branded notebook PCs starting the third quarter.

Also, some brands have decided to adopt metal cases to replace IMR (in-mold roller) treated plastic cases for their notebook PCs, in hopes of avoiding tight supply of IMR-treated cases in the third quarter, according to IDC.