Global notebook shipments are expected to drop 3.2% sequentially and 13.4% on year in the fourth quarter as brand vendors' new notebook models featuring entry-level/mid-range Haswell processors and Windows 8.1, were mostly shipped in September.
China's National Day holidays, which reduced the available working days in October, and ODMs' decisions to shift some of their orders for October to September to satisfy demand for the holidays also impacted global fourth-quarter notebook shipments.
Facing Lenovo raising its in-house notebook production rate to about 33%, up 10pp from the third quarter, Taiwan's notebook shipments are expected to drop 5.9% sequentially and 18.2% on year to only around 35 million units in the fourth quarter, Digitimes Research's figures showed.
Hewlett-Packard (HP), the largest brand vendor in the third quarter, will be surpassed by Lenovo in the fourth quarter as its shipment growth will decelerate after having shipped strongly to the education market in the third quarter. Acer, Asustek Computer and Samsung Electronics will see their four-quarter shipments drop slightly on quarter. Acer and Asustek will mainly push entry-level large-size notebooks without touchscreen support for the notebook market, while Samsung has already abandoned the strategy of pushing entry-level models.
Apple will focus on pushing its MacBook Pros in the fourth quarter and stop shipping previous-generation models in November. Apple is expected to ship at least three million MacBook Pros per quarter.
Inventec will see a double-digit percentage shipment drop sequentially in the fourth quarter due to HP's dramatic order decline. Quanta Computer will also be impacted by HP's weak shipments, but Apple's orders are expected to help the company's fourth-quarter shipments stay flat on quarter.
Compal Electronics and Pegatron Technology will both see sequential drops of less than 5% in the fourth quarter. Compal's orders from major clients will allow the company to offset completed orders from Asustek and Samsung, while Toshiba's increased orders will help Pegatron withstand Asustek's decreased orders.
Despite Asustek's order increase, Wistron will still see a sequential drop of over 5% in fourth-quarter notebook shipments due to Lenovo's sharp drop in orders.
This article is an excerpt from a Digitimes Research Quarterly Data Report (Taiwan notebooks – 3Q 2013). Visit our latest Data reports.
This article is an excerpt from a Digitimes Research Special Report (Taiwan notebooks – 3Q 2013). Visit our latest Special reports.