Taipei, Sept. 4, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan companies shipped 27.99 million notebook PCs in the second quarter, up 42% from a year earlier and up 4.5% from previous quarter, according to latest statistics compiled by IDC Taiwan.

The sequential growth was lower than originally forecasted 7.9%. For that IDC Taiwan attributed to the delayed shipments of models adopted Intel`s Centrino 2 Montevina platform and negative factors resulted from poor global economic performance.

The production value of local notebook PC industry reached US$14.81 billion, up 38.5% from a year earlier, thanks to increasing demand volume, though the unit price of such product has been declining.

IDC Taiwan pointed out that the local notebook PC line was expected to maintain a strong growth momentum similar to the first quarter into the second quarter, but the delayed delivery of Montevina platform-equipped models (to the third quarter) deterred the expected shipment growth during the platform generation-change period. In addition, the market intelligence firm said, the fuel prices hit a 10-year-high in the second quarter while the regional inflation problems both affected the market demand.

Helen Chiang, research manager, PC & Peripherals Group of IDC Taiwan, reminded that in addition to the delayed demonstration of the new Montevina-platform models, the downstream demand should also be cared. The United States market is still suffering impacts from the sub-prime financial crisis, while the contract production rates by Taiwan suppliers for major European notebook PC brands are decreasing, she explained.

Chiang also added that tight supply of battery cores did not disappear in the second quarter, hampering the shipments of some second-class notebook PC makers. Another notable problem is the IMR (in-molding roller) technology shortages at local makers in the third quarter.

In the second quarter, the top-five notebook PC ODMs (original developer manufacturers) in Taiwan together shipped 25.33 million units, accounting for 90.5% (compared with 89.9% in the first quarter) of the overall shipments. The top nameplates, in sequence, included Quanta Computer Inc. Compal Electronics Inc., Wistron Corp., Inventec, and Pegatron Corp. (formerly Asustek Computer Inc.).

(by Quincy Liang)