Soft demand for notebook PCs and the relentless tablet juggernaut will continue to drag down shipments of Taiwanese ODMs in the current quarter and beyond, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The bank said the outlook for the second half of 2013 remains challenging.
Shipments are expected to grow at a rate of two to three percent, which is very bad news for Acer and Asus. According to analysts, both companies suffered a 40+ percent plunge in unit sales last quarter in the European market. BoA Merrill Lynch said Acer and Asus are suffering from the rise of cheap tablets. Ironically, Asus was one of the pioneers in the Android tablet space and it produces Google’s 7-inch Nexus tablets, but it appears that more and more people are simply turning to even cheaper, white-box tablets.
Analyst Robert Cheng wrote in a note that Acer is likely to see losses over the next four quarter. He did not have many kind words for Asus, either.
“Asustek looks relatively fine, but notebook guidance is quite weak,” he said. Cheng added that Asustek’s “product mix” will become worse in the second half of the year.
As for contract manufacturers, Compal and Wistron should stay flat in the third quarter, while Quanta and Inventec still expect growth. Pegatron will get the worst of it. It is expected to lose some share and client orders, hence its notebook shipments will drop by 5 to 10 percent this quarter.
