Notebook shipments to grow by 24% in 2006

Global notebook shipments in 2006 is forecasted to grow by 24 percent over the previous year and reach 75 million units, says DRAMeXchange. The company also forecasts that the top five Taiwan vendors—Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Asustek and Inventec, will grab 80 percent of the market share, with its consolidated 60 million units.

According to DRAMeXchange, Taiwan's notebook vendors will be able to garner this substantial market share because of two key factors. First, the shrinking notebook cost, as well as the erosion of related OEM prices, have pushed Japan and Korea vendors to "opt out" as their shipment scale still lags behind Taiwan vendors. The insufficient shipment flexibility has also force them to give up in-house notebook production and instead place OEM orders at Taiwan. Second, the solid and healthy partnership among Taiwan OEM makers and international vendors has preserved local makers' substantial foothold at the OEM market.