Taiwan notebook makers break shipment records

Taiwan notebook PC makers set a new record high, manufacturing 29 million notebook PCs, or 89 percent of all notebook computers shipped in Q3 2007, according to market researcher DisplaySearch. This is up from 85 percent in Q2 2007 and 80 percent in Q1 2007.

The study reveals that many PC brands including HP, Dell, Apple and Acer Gateway outsourced 100 percent of their core notebook PC barebones assembly to subcontractors. However, some such as Toshiba, Sony and Fujitsu maintain some in-house assembly.

Among the Taiwan notebook PC subcontractors, Quanta is the leading manufacturer with a 34-percent market share on a unit basis, followed by Compal with 24-percent share and Wistron with a 13-percent share, according to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Notebook PC Value Chain Report. Inventec and ASUSTek ranked number four and five, respectively.

Key OEM customers for Quanta are HP, Dell, Acer and Apple. Similarly, Compal's primary customers are Dell, HP, Toshiba and Acer. Inventec's key customers are HP and Toshiba and Wistron builds product for HP, Acer and Lenovo. ASUSTek produces product for Toshiba and Dell.

The report also covers notebook LCD module maker shipments. In Q3 2007, 31.9 million notebook LCD modules were shipped from TFT-LCD makers, while notebook PC manufacturers shipped 29 million units. These variances were mainly due to supply chain, assembly lead time, buffer stocks and channel inventory, according to DisplaySearch.

The top notebook PC module suppliers in 3Q 2007 include LPL, Samsung, AUO, CMO, CPT, TMDisplay and Sharp. Each of the top five suppliers looked to their top five customers for at least 50% of their volume, with the exception of CMO, said DisplaySearch. HP was the top customer of LG.Philips LCD, Samsung and AUO. Sony, Toshiba and Lenovo are key customers of TMDisplay. Sony and Dell were two major notebook LCD customers of CPT.

- Gina Roos
Electronics Supply & Manufacturing