Worldwide notebook shipments are forecast to decrease only 12.9% sequentially in the first quarter of 2019 as vendors are still seeing some unfulfilled demand created by the CPU shortages. The CPU shortage gap is also expected to shrink to below one million units in the low season.
The shipments slipped 0.3% sequentially and 3% on year in the fourth quarter of 2018, Digitimes Research's number showed.
Hewlett-Packard's (HP) shipments are expected to decline dramatically in the first quarter of 2019 as the company had prepared extra inventory during the previous quarter to brace for the possible impacts from US-China trade tensions and CPU shortages. Lenovo also has seen weak results in the first quarter due to the trade tensions and fierce competition from Huawei and Xiaomi in its home market.
Dell will see the smallest sequential decline among the top-tier vendors in the first quarter as the enterprise sector, the vendor's main market, is usually less affected by seasonality. Apple will see better performance than that of the same period a year ago in first-quarter 2019, thanks to strong demand for its new MacBook Air.
Asustek will see a sharp sequential drop in first-quarter shipments due to its business reorganization.
As for Taiwan-based ODMs, Compal Electronics and Wistron will see their shipment shares rise in the first quarter of 2019 due to increases in orders from Dell.