Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s fifth-largest PC brand, could miss its target of shipping 12 million tablet devices this year because of a “sudden drop in tablet industry demand” worldwide, UBS Securities Pte Ltd said yesterday.
“We believe Asustek will have to revise down its full-year shipment target,” Arthur Hsieh (謝宗文), chief electronics hardware analyst at UBS’ Taipei branch, said in a client note.
Hsieh said the brokerage had cut its tablet shipment forecast for Asustek by 24 percent for this year, meaning the company might only ship about 9.1 million tablets this year.
In the second quarter, Asustek shipped 2.3 million tablets, up 13.1 percent year-on-year, with a 4.6 percent share of the global market, the International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report on July 24.
Global tablet shipments grew 11 percent annually in the second quarter to 49.3 million units, but declined 1.5 percent from the first quarter because of the rise in popularity among consumers of large-screen smartphones, and longer-than-anticipated ownership cycles, IDC said.
UBS also expects Asustek to register a mild recovery in notebook computer shipment in the current quarter and lead its peers in launching a new 2-in-1 hybrid notebook model later this quarter or early next quarter.
Hsieh said the new Transformer Book T300 Chi using the Intel Core M processor could help drive the company’s overall notebook sales momentum next quarter, but UBS still cut its notebook computer shipment forecast for Asustek to 21 million units from 22 million units, the note said.
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