Taiwanese PC makers enjoyed strong November sales

Boosted by seasonal demand, Taiwanese PC makers and assembly contractors enjoyed strong November sales.Foxconn Electronics (the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry) posted record high monthly sales of over NT$20 billion. Its cumulative sales reached NT$200 billion for the first 11 months of 2002, up 67.8% from the same period last year, close to the combined cumulative sales of both Quanta Computer and Asustek Computer.High Tech Computer (HTC) posted record-high sales of NT$2.53 billion in November, growing 46.9% from October on orders from new clients and unhindered smartphone shipments.First-tier notebook makers Quanta Computer and Compal Electronics both did well in November. Quanta shipped 1.06 million notebooks and posted record high sales of NT$14.64 billion. Quanta expects shipments of 1.8 million units for notebooks and other products in the fourth quarter, higher than earlier projected, due to additional orders from Hewlett-Packard (HP) and shipments of iMAC LCD monitors for Apple Computer.Compal Electronics maintained steady notebook shipments in November. With cumulative shipments in the first 11 months of 2002 of 3.77 million units, the company is expected to reach the four-million-unit shipment mark by year-end. Despite the loss of HP’s LCD monitor orders, Compal gained orders from Acer, and thus brought up its November sales. The handheld product division, viewed as the star of Compal, will release new mobile phones and PDAs. However, the company’s overall December sales are projected to drop due to decreasing demand from its major clients.Inventec is likely to post good December sales on increasing server shipments to HP and new consumer notebooks.