The global top-five notebook brand vendors together achieved an on-month shipment growth of 14%, but an on-year drop of 15%, while the top-three ODMs together had 5% on-month growth, but 9% on-year drop, all weaker than Digitimes Research's original forecast.
Digitimes Research expects the top-five notebook vendors and the top-three ODMs to continue suffering from weaker-than-expected performance in June.
Digitimes Research believes their weak performances in May were mainly because of poor demand for notebooks. Vendors trying to reduce their inventory to welcome the launch of new Windows 10-based notebooks was a minor factor in the decline.
Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard (HP) both enjoyed 20-40% on-month shipment growth in May, but still suffered declines compared to the same month a year ago. Acer had an on-year shipment decline over 20% and Asustek over 40% in May, the worst among the top-five brand vendors. However, Dell had a slight shipment growth compared to a year ago.
As for the top-three ODMs, Compal Electronics had the best on-month shipment performance in May, but its shipments were weaker than Digitimes Research's original forecast. Wistron's shipments in May dropped around 7% on month, while Quanta Computer had about 5% on-month growth.
Compared to a year ago, Quanta's shipments in May were at about the same level, while Compal and Wistron both had declines.