Tablet PC Competition to Benefit Taiwanese Firms

Taipei, March 25, 2011 (CENS)--With PC vendors heavily promoting tablets to trigger more fierce competition in the marketplace, Taiwanese PC and related parts and component manufacturers are expected to benefit from the market boom this year.

Starting with Apple Inc.'s iPad 2G, launched on March 25 in 25 countries of the world and seen as a blockbuster for its upgraded specifications at a comparatively low unit price of US$499, more than 100 tablet models from different PC and handset vendors will be available in the market in the second quarter of this year.

In addition to existing players as Apple, Motorola and Samsung, others, including Taiwan's Acer, Asustek, HTC, and MSI and the U.S.'s Dell and HP, will also join the competition starting the end of March.

For instance, Asustek's Eee Pad is slated for launch around the end of March will sell for US$399 to US$699 per unit, and Acer's iconia will also be available starting in April, which will be built with a 2.1GHz dual-core processor with different price tags from US$299 to US$699.

Market observers estimate about 60 million tablet PCs will be sold worldwide throughout the year, with Apple to contribute 35-40 million units as the No.1 vendor.

Riding on the market booms, Taiwanese PC manufacturers, such as Hon Hai Group, Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., Wistron Corp., Inventec Corp., Pegatron Corp., etc., will surely capture a big slice of the huge market pie this year.

Among them, Hon Hai Group is expected to emerge as the biggest winner in the competition landscape, as it has secured Apple's contract orders on hand and revved up production in China for the client. In the meantime, Quanta and Compal, the world's top two notebook PC suppliers, have shared Acer's manufacturing orders for iconia, while Pegatron has garnered Asustek's order for Eee Pad Transformer.

Also, HP's tablet running Web OS and going on sale in June will be supplied by Inventec. Dell's Android 3.0-installed model has been mass produced by Qista Corp, and RIM's PlayBook has also been set for production by Quanta.

Makers of PC parts and components have also benefited from the tablet competition, such as TPK Holding Co., Ltd. and Wintek Corp. (touch panels), Largan Precision Co., Ltd. (optical lens modules), Simplo Technology Co., Ltd. and Dynapack International Technology Corp. (batteries), Unimicron Technology Corp. and Tripod Technology Corp. (high-density interconnection boards), etc.