WASHINGTON: Asustek Computer shipped two million notebooks globally in September, hiking 127.3% from 88,000 units in August, while Acer shipped 1.7 million units, increasing 41.7% from 1.2 million, according to sources from supply chain makers. Shipments are expected to continue climbing up to December, but both Asustek and Acer declined to comment on market speculation.
Asustek vice president Eric Chen previously forecast that the company will have a good fourth quarter and its shipments will grow each month in the quarter, helping its annual shipments to reach close to 20 million units.
The sources expect Asustek’s shipments in October to stay at the same level as in September, but its shipment performance in December will be decided by holiday demand and exchange rate fluctuations.
The sources believe Acer and Asustek’s strong shipment growths in September were because consumers have started purchasing Windows 10 notebooks, channel retailers are seeing dropping inventory and are starting to order new notebooks to satisfy demand for the year-end holidays, and brand vendors usually raise their shipments in the last month of a quarter to help embellish their quarterly results.
Taiwan’s ODMs also achieved shipment growth in September with Compal Electronics and Wistron expecting to see double-digit percentage on-month growths.
