Contractor relationship between Asustek and Sony weakens
Dec 30, 2005
Sony Corp. of Japan is keeping its distance from Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc., which has been one of Sony's major contract manufacturers in Taiwan in the past, chiefly because Asustek has successfully increased production of its own-brand products, especially in the arena of notebook (NB) personal computer. At present, Asustek contract manufactures only one NB product line for Sony, and Asustek said it has also seen a substantial decline in the volume of contract production of Sony's PlayStation2 (PS2) video game consoles. Currently, Sony only contracts with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. to provide its more advanced PS3 game consoles. Nevertheless, Asustek still maintains relations with other clients, including Samsung Electronics of South Korea and Apple Computer Inc. of the U.S. At present, Apple is Asustek's largest client in terms of contract production for NBs. Despite the fact that Apple's upcoming Intel-powered NBs will compete with Asustek NBs in 2006, Asustek still has acquired contract orders for two million iBook NBs from Apple, more than any other Taiwanese manufacturer. However, whether Asustek will be able to continue its close-knit cooperative relationship with Apple after 2007 is open to question, because Asustek will rev up production of its own-brand NBs then. Although Sony hasn't completely withdrawn contract orders from Asustek, the cooperative relation between them has been on the wane. Asustek once shipped 60,000 NBs to Sony monthly in its contract-production heyday several years ago. Asustek said it would shift contract orders to affiliate Weaso Computer Inc. in an attempt to solve the production conflicts between own-brand and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) products. source & copyright: CENS
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