Dell places new contract NB orders with Quanta, Wistron

Taipei, Dec. 1, 2003 (CENS)--After fierce competition, Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc. and Wistron Corp. recently won Dell Computer Corp.'s contract orders for different notebook PC models, to be delivered from the fourth quarter 2004 through the end of 2005, according to industry sources.

Citing statistics compiled by International Data Corp. (IDC), industry sources said that the global shipment volume of notebook PCs is expected to reach about 37 million units this year, and rise to 43 million units in 2004 and 50 million units in 2005. With a global market share of about 20%, the sources added, Dell is expected to sell over 10 million notebook PCs in 2005.

The sources said that Quanta, the largest notebook PC contract supplier in Taiwan, won all of Dell's contract orders for the latest Latitude notebook model and is expected to ship five million notebook PCs to Dell in 2005. Including shipments to other major customers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Quanta's 2005 notebook computer shipment volume is expected to hit 15 million units, about one-third of the global supply, the sources added.

Dell used to place contract orders with two major local partners, Quanta and Compal Electronics Inc., which together accounted for 90% of Dell's contract orders in the past. Wistron , however, only supplied a light-weight notebook model to Dell with an annual volume of tens of thousands units.

Wistron recently also won Dell's contract orders for the Inspiron mainstream notebook PC model (with a 15-inch thin film transistor-liquid crystal display--TFT-LCD screen). The firm's shipment to Dell is expected to outstrip two million units in 2005, which will make the company one of the top-three local notebook PC suppliers to the American company.

Industry sources said that Wistron has been aggressively striving to win contract order from Dell since the beginning of the year. With the new order from Dell and stable business with major customers such as Acer, HP and IBM, Wistron has the chance to become one of the top-three notebook PC contract suppliers in Taiwan and challenge an annual shipment goal of five million notebook PCs in 2005.

Compal would still be Dell's major supplier, the said sources, as the company would also supply the Inspiron model to Dell and has won Dell's order for medium- and high-level personal digital assistant (PDA) models. The sources said Compal's new PDA orders from Dell represent the Taiwan company's pluralistic ties with the big international brand.