Global Shipment of NB PCs to Rebound 10-15% in Q2

Taipei, April 8, 2008 (CENS)--Global shipment of notebook PCs is expected to rebound by 10-15% in the second quarter of this year from a total of 22.5 million units posted a quarter earlier, according to industry sources.

Industry insiders noted that the first-quarter shipment of notebook PCs totaled over 22.5 million units, down around 10% from the fourth quarter of last year but better than an all-time average for the quarter in the sector.

In light of a prolonged shortage of cells, main material for making power supplies for notebook PCs, as well as better-than-expected shipment performance in the first quarter, Macquarie Securities projected second-quarter shipment of notebook PCs to grow only 5%.

More pessimistically, severe cell shortage and uncertain effects of the U.S. sub-prime-mortgage crisis have made Credit Lyonnais Securities reverse its second-quarter shipment projection to a drop of 7% to about 21 million units from a growth of 6.2%.

However, the world's top four contract suppliers of notebook PCs, namely Quanta Computer Inc., Inventec Corp., Compal Electronics Inc. and Wistron Corp., are more optimistic about shipment performance than institutional investors, reckoning that tight supply of power supplies will be solved in the third quarter, when Japan's and Korea's cell makers will either resume their production lines or complete capacity expansion.

Quanta, the world's largest supplier of notebook PCs, saw an acceptable drop of 10-15% in its shipment in the first quarter from 9.4 million units posted in the fourth quarter of last year, and has projected its second-quarter shipment to rebound 5-10%. Although facing the cell shortage and sub-prime-mortgage crunch, Quanta seems not to adjust downward its original shipment projection of 40 million units for this year, saying that the figure is even not including shipment of low-priced laptops and MID (mobile Internet device) products. Recently, the firm has won a big order from Acer Inc. for 2 million low-price laptops, which are expected to serve as the strongest growth momentum for the firm's operations this year.

On the other hand, Inventec, unaffected by the cell shortage, predicts its notebook PC shipment to grow over 10% in the second quarter from the first quarter, and is confident of achieving annual shipment of more than 10 million units this year.

Thanks to newly added orders from Japan's Toshiba and U.S.'s Hewlett-Packard, Compal estimates its second-quarter shipment at around 6.9 million units, up 10% from a quarter earlier. The firm expects strong demand for notebook PCs in emerging markets will ultimately offset effects of cell shortages in the sector. But, Wistron is expected to post a growth of only 5-10%, down from original 10-15%, in notebook PC shipment because its major client Dell has been impacted by cell deficiency caused by a fire in a production plant of LGC, a Korean cell maker.

Shipment Projection of World's Top 4 Contract NB-PC Suppliers
Company	Shipment in Q1	Shipment in Q2	Quarterly Growth Rate
Quanta Computer Inc.	8.15 M.	8.55-8.96 M.	10-15%
Compal Electronics Inc.	5.96 M.	6.5-6.9 M.	10%
Wistron Corp.	3.9-4 M.	4.2 M.	5-10%
Inventec Corp.	2.73 M.	3 M.	10%
Source: Institutional Investors