The demand for work-from-home and e-learning devices triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has driven strong consumption of notebook computers, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note on Friday.
Overall notebook shipments should see an upside in the second half of the year, mostly on Chromebook demand based on Yuanta’s channel checks, with global Chromebook shipments likely to increase by nearly 100 percent year-on-year, mainly because of demand from the US and Japan, it said.
Given that Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) has a more than 60 percent share of the Chromebook original design manufacturing (ODM) business, coupled with strong demand for Macbooks that is expected for the second half of the year, Quanta is likely to see higher annual growth in notebook shipments than other ODM firms, Yuanta analyst Harvey Kao (高啟瑋) said.
Quanta, the leading contract laptop maker, is forecast to ship 51 million notebooks, up from 35 million units last year, Kao said.
Since Quanta has decided to drop its loss-making wearable product line and diversify into more smart devices with other leading US clients, its product mix and profitability are expected to improve over the long term, he said.
“Going forward, with more educational tools adopted for e-learning and the higher possibility of accidental damage to notebooks among students, procurement and replacement demand for laptops should see stable growth in the coming years,” Kao said.
Quanta reported that revenue last month grew 0.13 percent monthly and 18.41 percent annually to NT$93.47 billion (US$3.16 billion), with laptop shipments rising 10.64 percent from May and 52.94 percent from a year earlier to 5.2 million units, company data showed.
Second-quarter revenue increased 42.02 percent from the first quarter and 9.96 percent higher than a year earlier to NT$270.22 billion, with laptop shipments surging by 98.63 percent from the previous quarter to 14.5 million units, or 66.67 percent higher than a year ago, the Quanta data showed.
Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧) attributed the second-quarter growth to robust laptop and server shipments, and said the work-from-home and e-learning trends would extend into the third quarter, boosting Chromebook and cloud server demand.
“The company’s Chromebook orders are expected to remain strong this quarter, while shipments of servers are likely to maintain double-digit percentage growth this year,” Jih Sun researcher Satin Lin (林子楹) said in a separate note on Monday last week.
In a research report issued on July 9, International Data Corp (IDC) said consumers bought more PCs — including Chromebooks — in the second quarter as students and employees stayed home to minimize the spread of the coronavirus, pushing global PC shipments up 11.2 percent annually to 72.3 million units.
However, IDC said that strong computer sales last quarter only reflected short-term business needs and online education demand amid the pandemic.
“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement. “What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continue during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen.”
EXPECTATIONS: The firm, which is on track to outpace global foundry industry revenue growth, said it expects constrained advanced process capacity amid stronger AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday increased its projected revenue growth for this year to above 25 percent, as stronger-than-expected demand for premium smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) devices are to drive greater utilization of cutting-edge 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer chips. In April TSMC estimated 21 to 24 percent annual growth. The firm’s revenue growth is on track to greatly outpace the global foundry industry, which is expected to rise about 10 percent this year. “Over the past three months, we have observed stronger AI and high-end smartphone demand from our customers, which is to boost the overall capacity utilization for our leading-edge
INVESTMENT: The company’s planned complex in Texas would be the first 12-inch silicon wafer fab built in the US in more than 20 years, a GlobalWafers official said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said it secured up to US$400 million in direct funding from the US Department of Commerce under the CHIPS and Science Act for the construction of two new advanced fabs in the US. Its subsidiaries GlobalWafers America and MEMC LLC are to build a 12-inch silicon wafer fab in Sherman, Texas, and another one in Missouri to produce silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers used to make leading-edge chips. “With the support of the [US President Joe] Biden Administration, we are honored to be bringing to American shores the world’s most cutting-edge 12-inch semiconductor
Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (力積電) yesterday said that net losses ballooned to NT$1.96 billion (US$60.1 million) in the second quarter, as heavy manufacturing costs from a new fab outweighed the improvement in customer demand and factory utilization. That compared with losses of NT$439 million in the first quarter. The company posted a net profit of NT$617 million a year earlier. Gross margin plummeted to 5.3 percent last quarter, from 15.4 percent in the previous quarter and 16.8 percent in the same period last year. It was the weakest since the fourth quarter of last year. The chipmaker blamed heavy depreciation and higher manufacturing
Nikon Corp is fielding strong demand for its legacy chipmaking machines in China, which is mobilizing resources to build its own semiconductor supply chain. Inquiries for the Japanese precision maker’s lithography tools have surged in China, Nikon president Muneaki Tokunari said. The company is set to revamp a lithography machine geared for decades-old manufacturing processes. Its NSR-2205iL1, launching this summer, would serve the market for mature chip technology and Nikon expects to sell more than 10 units of the machine annually, said Tokunari, who is also chief operating officer and chief financial officer. New companies are sprouting up in China to make