Concerns about possible shortages in the wake of the March 11 disasters in Japan sent notebook makers aggressively stockpiling optical disc drive (ODD) in the second quarter of 2011, resulting in strong growth of Taiwan's ODD shipments.

On an annual basis, Taiwan's second-quarter notebook shipments declined. But the on-year decline of 0.9% was less steep than 3.4% drop seen in the first quarter, showing that the market was on its way to recovery.

Taiwan makers' digital still camera (DSC) shipments grew 23% sequentially in the second quarter of 2011, but continued to see an on-year decrease.

Taiwan's handset shipments dropped nearly 20% sequentially in the first quarter of 2011 due to seasonality.

Taiwan makers' digital still camera (DSC) shipments continued to decline in the first quarter of 2011 mostly due to seasonality.

In the first quarter of 2010, shipments of Taiwan's network interface cards (NICs) and wireless routers (WRs) both dropped sequentially due to seasonality.

Taiwan's optical disc drive (ODD) shipments rose almost 8% sequentially in the first quarter of 2011 although Taiwan's notebook shipments in the quarter suffered a sequential drop of nearly 10%.

Impacted by Intel's defective 6 series chipsets (Cougar Point), Taiwan's notebook shipments to downstream brand vendors saw an obvious shipment drop in February.

With clients building up their inventories for the Christmas shopping season, Taiwan's digital still camera (DSC) shipments were strong in October, after which orders began to drop. Taiwan's fourth-quarter shipments declined 5.9%.

Thanks to recovery of traditional notebook sales worldwide, Taiwan's optical disc drive (ODD) shipments increased slightly in the fourth quarter of 2010 after declining for three quarters. But the growth was limited because of excessive notebook inventories in the retail channels.

Taiwan's shipments of network interface cards (NICs) and wireless routers (WRs) both increased sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2010, thanks to seasonal demand. In addition to the seasonal effect, labor shortage in China after Lunar New Year will also affect shipments in first-quarter 2011.

Although Taiwan's notebook shipments saw a sequential growth of 4% in the fourth quarter of 2010, Digitimes Research believes the growth should not be seen as an indication of recovery in consumer demand because the increase was mainly driven by notebook makers rushing to ship their products before November 2010 in order to meet their clients' time-to-market schedule. The makers were shipping their products earlier than usual as they chose sea delivery in order to save cost.