Wistron Outpaces Compal EPS as Taiwan's Second Most Profitable NB PC Maker in 2011

Taipei, April 5, 2012 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Wistron Corp., a globally leading contract manufacturer of notebook PCs by market shares, reported full-year EPS (earnings per share) of NT$4.36 for 2011 to outpace its Taiwanese counterpart Compal Electronics Inc. as the second most profitable company of this kind on the island.

In the year, Quanta Computer Inc. remained Taiwan's most profitable notebook PC contract manufacturer with EPS of NT$6.02, mainly thanks to increasing shipments of non-laptop products such as servers and Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets.

While Wistron posted banner EPS, Compal, which had been only next to Quanta in either notebook PC shipment volume or turnover for a time, however, saw its EPS sharply plummet to only NT$2.53 and fell to the third place in profit ranking. Meanwhile, Inventec Corp. and Pegatron Corp. came fourth and fifth, respectively, with EPS of NT$0.79 and NT$0.05.

Pegatron, which successfully tapped Apple Inc.'s supply chain last year, raked in net profits of NT$975 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. Enjoying increasing orders from Acer and Toshiba, the firm is expected by institutional investors to score a 30% growth in laptop shipment to further drive up its profits this year.

Writing off reinvestment losses in E-Ton Power Tech Co., a photovoltaic product manufacturer who suffered a huge net loss of over NT$8 per share in 2011, Inventec hence witnessed its net profits drastically decline 30% yearly to NT$2.425 billion in the year.

As to outlooks in the first quarter of 2012, the said notebook PC makers all are very likely to attain robust growth in their laptop shipments, mainly because the months-long shortages of hard drives have gradually eased.

Noteworthy is that tablet PCs have been increasingly regarded as new growth engines for Taiwanese laptop makers. For example, Quanta, which remains as Amazon's main contract manufacture of Kindle Fire this year, has reportedly garnered an order for Asus's newest tablet PC model developed in cooperation with Google. In the meantime, Wistron has allegedly joined Barnes & Noble's supply chain of tablet PCs, while winning Asus's order for Transformer tablets with plastic housings. Plus, Compal and Pegatron have also been contracted by different customers to supply more tablet PCs.

Inventec, nevertheless, reportedly has yet to receive any new orders for tablet PCs since one of its major customers, Hewlett-Packard Co., decided to withdraw from the market for WebOS-powered tablet PCs last year, and is likely to see Wistron increasingly eat away at its tablet business with Barnes & Noble.

Profit Performance by Taiwan's Top 5 NB PC Makers in 2011
Company	Net Profits in Q4	Full-year EPS
Quanta Computer Inc.	NT$6.533 Bn.	NT$6.02
Compal Electronics Inc.	NT$2.13 Bn.	NT$2.53
Wistron Corp.	NT$2.362 Bn.	NT$4.36
Inventec Corp.	NT$903 M.	NT$0.79
Pegatron Corp.	NT$975 M.	NT$0.05

Source: each company