TAIPEI: The decline in shipments by Taiwanese contract PC makers will slow next year, aided by potential replacement demand and weakening competition from Chinese rivals, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute said yesterday.
Notebook computer shipments are forecast to contract by 1.9 percent next year following an annual decline of 8 percent this year, while the decline in desktop computer shipments is to decelerate from this year’s 10.3 percent to 1.7 percent next year, MIC said.
“Intel Corp’s upcoming launch of Kaby Lake processors is expected to stimulate some PC replacement demand from the end of this year to at least the first half of next year,” MIC information system and application deputy director Charles Chou told the Taipei Times on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei.
ADDED PRESSURE
Chou said Intel was supposed to unveil Kaby Lake in the middle of this year, but postponed the launch to the end of this year, adding more pressure to the PC industry. The new processor’s postponement can stimulate PC shipments next year, he said.
It has been more than three years since the last significant replacement demand for PCs, when Microsoft Corp ended its support for the Windows XP operating system in April 2014, Chou said.
“As the product life of PCs purchased in 2014 or earlier is coming to an end, we are expecting new replacement demand to help cushion the slowing industry next year,” he said.
In addition, competition from Chinese rivals might ease next year, as the production capacity of Lienpal Ltd reached its limit and the company has no plans to expand its capacity for the time being, Chou said.
That has prompted some PC vendors to shift their orders from Chinese manufacturers to Taiwanese firms on the back of quantity and quality concerns, he added.
MIC expects global notebook shipments to contract by 1.8 percent to 149.18 million units next year, compared with a 7.1 percent annual decline this year.
Worldwide desktop shipments are expected to fall 2.3 percent from this year’s 104.45 million units to 102.07 million units next year, it said.
