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.
Taiwan's handset shipments topped 25 million units with a more than 50% on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, meeting Digitimes Research's expectation in its 3Q10 report.
Taiwan's optical disc drive (ODD) shipments dropped 11.2% sequentially in the third quarter mainly because of a weak PC market, which was still digesting its inventories.
Taiwan's handset shipments hit a record in the third quarter of 2010. First-tier handset vendors Nokia, LG Electronics (LGE), Sony Ericsson and Motorola all expanded JDM or ODM orders to Taiwan, and Taiwan's own-brand smartphone vendor High Tech Computer (HTC) also saw shipments increase, spurring Taiwan's total handset shipments to top 21 million units.
Taiwan's network interface card (NIC) and wireless router (WR) shipments both experienced a double-digit decline in the third quarter of 2010. Back-to-school demand failed expectations. Shipments in the second half are unlikely to follow the cycle of previous years mainly due to sluggish notebook demand as well as high inventory levels.
Taiwan notebook shipments decreased 1.6% to 44.20 million units in the third quarter of 2010, well below the 49.88 million total predicted previously by Digitimes Research.
