Taipei, Feb. 9, 2010 (CENS)--Japanese notebook PC brand Fujitsu plans to raise outsourcing rate to 50% this year from 30% in 2009. The company`s new LH series notebook PC models are expected to be contract assembled by Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan.

Fujitsu recently unveiled five brand-new notebook PC models, in which the price-friendly 14-inch Lifebook LH700 and LH530 will be supplied by Quanta. The Japanese brand plans to push three LH series models per quarter (12 models a year) for sales in the global market. In addition, the firm also plans to release contract assembly orders for 13.3-inch models used to be produced in Japan to Taiwanese companies.

Fujitsu is expected to purchase NT$36 billion (US$1.11 billion at US$1: NT$32.5) worth of notebook PCs this year from Taiwan, up about 20% from last year.

Industry sources said that Fujitsu produced about 70% of its notebook PCs in-house last year, but the company decided to greatly upgrade its outsourcing in 2010.

Fujitsu procured US$2 billion worth of products from Taiwan in 2009, including mainly information and communication technology (ICT) items such as logic ICs, netbooks (mini-note PCs), servers etc. The Japanese company places notebook PC contract orders mainly to local suppliers Quanta, Wistron Corp. and Inventec Corp.; motherboard orders to mainly Giga-Byte Technology Co., Ltd.; and IC-chip, power-supply, networking/communication orders to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), Delta Electronics, Inc., CyberTAN Technology Inc., Universal Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd., Accton Technology Corp. etc.

Currently, Fujitsu is the third-largest Japanese procurer of Taiwan-made ICT products.

(by Quincy Liang)