Global top-five notebook brand vendors and top-three ODMs enjoyed on-month shipment growths of 13% and 9% in September, respectively. Among first-tier vendors, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer and Dell achieved better performance than the others. HP shipped 3.5 million notebooks in September, while Acer shipped over 1.5 million units due to the release of its new entry-level non-touchscreen notebooks. Dell achieved a double-digit percentage growth on month in September with the launch of new products.
In September, Inventec and Wistron had better performance than their fellow competitors, enjoying on-month growth between 15-20%. Inventec's growth was mainly due to increased orders from HP, while Wistron benefited from orders from Dell and Lenovo. Compal had an on-month shipment growth of around 10% in September, but Pegatron saw its notebook shipments drop below one million units due to Asustek's orders.
Intel's announcement of a series of entry-level products during the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) and Compal's decision to acquire smartphone ODM Compal Communications were two major events in September.
Intel is expected to significantly reduce its Bay Trail processor prices to compete for more share in the mobile device market. Intel also announced that the IT market will be able to see US$99-199 Intel-based tablets, sub-US$350 2-in-1 devices and US$300 Haswell-based Chromebooks in the future, showing its conviction to breaking through bottlenecks.
Although Taiwan ODMs are unlikely to be able to achieve further changes in the mobile device market in 2013, events such as Apple's strategy of separating its orders among several ODMs, Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile business, and HTC's difficulties created by its supply chain, are expected to provide some opportunities for ODMs.
Digitimes Research believes that Compal's acquisition of Compal Communications will accelerate the evolution of the mobile device manufacturing industry.
