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Digitimes Research: Top-5 notebook vendors and top-3 ODMs see 5-10% on-month shipment growth in August

Joanne Chien, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei

Although the IT market has already started preparing for back-to-school demand, the global top-five notebook vendors' combined shipments and top-three ODMs' combined shipments only achieved 5-10% on-month growths in August, lower than those of the same month a year ago.

However, their combined shipments in September and October are expected to achieve strong growths because vendors are still optimistic about year-end holiday demand. Microsoft's Windows 8.1 with Bing solution for inexpensive notebooks will also be an important growth driver.

Among the top-five notebook brands, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer both achieved over 25% on-month growth in August. As for on-year performance, Acer achieved four consecutive months of growth, while Asustek Computer has been seeing its shipments stay at about the same level as a year ago.

The top-three ODMs' on-month shipment growths were between 4-8% in August.

In addition to US$249 notebooks, HP, Acer and Asustek also released US$199 notebooks using Windows 8.1 with Bing, looking to snatch demand with low prices.

Digitimes Research expects inexpensive notebook shipments to reach 5-6 million units in the second half, about the same level as Chromebook's 6-7 million units. With the addition of Intel's Classmate PCs, inexpensive notebook, which have characteristics and market positions very similar to netbooks, are expected to ship a total of 15 million units in 2014, accounting for 8-9% of global notebook shipments.

Content from this article was part of a complete Digitimes Research Chinese-language report that has not yet been translated into English. If you are interested in an English version of the report or wish to receive more information about the report, click here to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Digitimes Research also provides quarterly tracking services for market sectors such as China Smartphone, China Smartphone AP, Taiwan ICT and Taiwan FPD. Click here for more information about Digitimes Research Tracking services.