Wistron lands server orders from HP

Taipei, Dec. 18, 2003 (CENS)--Wistron Corp., a subsidiary of the computer giant Acer Group, recently announced it has acquired new OEM (original equipment manufacturer) orders for computer servers from the U.S.-based Hewlett Packard Corp. The HP orders will be filled starting from January 2004.

With the HP orders, Wistron anticipated it would ship over one million servers next year. The company has become HP's second largest contract manufacturer of servers, only behind Inventec Corp.

In addition, Wistron has replaced Arima Computer Inc. as HP's fourth contract manufacturer of notebook computers. The other three contract manufacturers with HP are Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Corp., and Inventec.

The company also expected to ship 3.5 million to four million notebook computers next year because of the increased orders from four major clients, including Dell Corp., HP Corp., IBM Corp. and Acer Inc.

Thanks to the acquisition of new orders, a domestic institutional investor said Wistron will see overall sales break the NT$100 billion (US$2.94 billion at US$1:NT$34) mark next year.

Wistron said it has made success in vying for HP's OEM orders for NB computers. In total, the company will ship 30,000 up to 40,000 units of motherboards, desktop computers, NB computers and servers to HP per month next year.

By contract manufacturing servers for IBM, Acer and HP, Wistron is expected to ship over one million servers next year, which will allow it to take on rival Quanta and Mitac International Corp.

Wistron scored NT$68.969 billion (US$2.02 billion) in cumulative sales in the first 11 months of this year. An institutional investor estimated the company would post NT$76.7 billion (US$2.25 billion) in overall sales this year, reaching only 85% of its financial projection. Nevertheless, the company projected to net overall sales of NT$103 billion (US$3.02 billion) next year, up 34% from this year's projected goal.

Despite the projection made by the institutional investor, Wistron itself anticipated it would see sales grow by over 50% next year from this year's level.

JP Morgan Stanley Securities predicted Wistron would post after-tax earnings of NT$1.5 billion (US$44.11 million) or NT$1.71 per share this year. Thanks to the sharp surge in sales, Wistron will be able to score net earnings of NT$2.2 billion (US$64.7 million) or NT$2.51 (US$0.07) per share next year.

It is expected Wistron will deliver one million NB computers to Acer and two brand-new NB computers to IBM next year. In addition, the company will begin shipping 15.4-inch NB computers to HP, which are suitable for use by consumers and medium- and small-sized enterprises, in the fourth quarter of next year. The firm will ship 150,000 up to 200,000 NB computers to HP in the fourth quarter of next year.

Wistron said it would ship consumer NB computers to Dell starting from the fourth quarter of 2004 till the second quarter of 2005. The company anticipated it would ship 150,000 up to 200,000 NB computers to Dell per quarter during the above-mentioned period of time.