Worldwide notebook shipments are forecast to drop 1.8% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2019 after registering a nearly 2% increase in the prior quarter, according to Digitimes Research.
With the US set to impose a tariff on China-imported notebooks beginning mid-December, most notebooks brands remained keen on pre-stocking extra inventory during the third quarter, while strong demand from the enterprise sector and the fact that Huawei's notebooks were still in production, also contributed to the shipment growth in the third quarter.
As most brands have already built high levels of inventory and Intel's CPU shortage issue has not yet been fully resolved despite its capacity expansion, global notebook shipments are expected to dip sequentially in the fourth quarter, but will still register on-year growth, Digitimes Research numbers show.
Top-brand Hewlett-Packard (HP) will perform strongly in the enterprise sector, but its overall performance will not be as well as competitors due to negative factors including business re-organization and supply chain relocation. Lenovo, in second place, will see shipments pick up slightly on quarter in the fourth quarter thanks to Chinese e-commerce platforms' seasonal promotion activities, but the proportion of its shipments from Taiwan ODM partners will slip.
Third-place Dell will see fourth-quarter shipments drop sequentially due to the company's less competitive strategy for inexpensive consumer models despite steady sales for enterprise models.
Apple and Microsoft are both expected to perform strongly in the fourth quarter. Apple's new 16-inch ultra-thin-bezel MacBook Pro is expected to begin volume shipments in the fourth quarter, while Microsoft's new third-generation Surface Laptop will boost sharply the brand vendor's shipments sequentially in the fourth quarter.
Because of Apple's new MacBook Pro, Quanta Computer, the key supplier of the machine, is expected to see rising share of Taiwan's shipments in the fourth quarter, while Wistron and Pegatron will also see their shares grow thanks to Dell and Microsoft ramping up orders.