Taiwan's NB ODMs Lag Overall Industry in Shipment Growth

Taipei, June 24, 2009 (CENS)--Faced with the harsh competition from EMS (electronics manufacturing service) providers as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Flextronics International Inc., Taiwan's notebook ODMs (original design manufacturer) will see shipment growth reach 11.4% year-on-year in 2009, lower than the average 15.6% expected by the overall NB industry worldwide, said Taiwan-based information-technology industry researcher Topology Research Institute (TRI).

The TRI's research results show NB is one of the few consumer electronics that enjoy conspicuous growth in the second half of this year. An industry insider said the growth for NB sector is worth watching as some NB big names will introduce Netbook PCs combined with Microsoft's new operating system Windows 7 etc. in the second half of this year.

TRI noted the NB sector will see peak shipment fall in the fourth quarter of this year, rather than the third quarter in the past, because of the delayed introduction of new machines. With the projection of delayed shipment, TRI has slightly downward adjusted this year's worldwide shipments of NBs to 148 million units from the earlier projected 150 million.

In the past, Taiwan's five-largest ODMs of NBs commanded over 80% of the worldwide shipments because they could register higher growth than the overall industry.

According to TRI's projection, Compal, Inventec and Wistron will see shipments grow 28%, 23.6% and 14.6% this year, respectively. Shipments of the products for Quanta and Regatron will slide by 1.9% and 4.3%, respectively.