Acer coping with shortage of 15", BenQ aiming to boost shipments
Acer will market more LCD TV panel- and CRT-based monitors to cope with the current serious shortage of 15" and 17" LCD monitors. Supply is estimated to be at 70% and 30% of their respective demand. Demand for LCD TVs has been weaker than expected, and 15" inch LCD TV panels are in ample supply. Acer plans to purchase more 15" panels for use in production of higher priced multi-function monitors, which also are used as Tvs. In addition, Acer also plans to purchase more lower-priced CRT monitors to maintain its share in the desktop PC market segment. Acer's brand BenQ aims to boost LCD monitor shipments and market share next year, disclosed Hermit Huang, president and general manager for BenQ's network display business group. However, Huang predicted competition would become much more intense and the market further concentrated next year, giving LCD monitor producers better control over LCD panels a distinct competitive advantage. Huang also said BenQ plans to actively promote its own-brand business, especially in the China market. BenQ-brand business is expected to account for less than 25% of the company's LCD monitor shipments this year. Next year that will be 50%, of which 50% will 17" TFT-monitors.
SDRAM stays strong, DDR turns soft
SDRAM pricing has remained strong in the spot market while DDR pricing has begun to soften, according to DRAMeXchange. SDRAM surged on demand growth and limited supply. Spot prices for 64Mbit (4Mbit×16) and 128Mbit (4Mbit×16 and 16Mbit×8) SDRAM increased by 4-5%. DRAMeXchange projects demand for SDRAM may stay strong through year-end. Thanks to demand from the consumer electronics sector, spot prices for SDRAM have been on the rise since early September. While prices for 16Mbit have surged by 70%, prices for 128Mbit SDRAM have gone up 16% to 32%. Although SDRAM currently appears to be the most profitable sector of the whole DRAM market, suppliers are still evaluating whether to ramp output or allocate more capacity to SDRAM production, said DRAMeXchange. Prices may drop by then. In addition, the SDRAM market is small (10% of the total DRAM market) and oversupply can happen very easily.
Demand for DDR chips remained slow in the spot market due to seasonal slow sales after October. From November prices for 400MHz DDR dropped 3% from $4.60 to $4.46; 333MHz DDR dropped 3.0% to $4.33 and 266MHz DDR to $4.26. Hynix Semiconductor's plan to build an fab in China is not expected to significantly help the financially-plagued South Korean company, some Taiwanese DRAM makers said. Hynix plans to set up an fab in China to circumvent anti-dumping duties imposed by the US and European Union (EU). The DRAM maker also hopes to shun tariffs by the China government by setting up the fab within the country. Some Taiwanese DRAM makers, however, said it takes about two years to build and start operations, making the fab not cost-effective. In addition, the advantage of tax benefits in China will disappear after the country opens its door to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Mobo shipments from first-tier makers up in October
First-tier motherboard makers shipped a total of 8.29 million motherboards last October, up 18.3% sequentially. Asustek Computer shipped a record 3.78 million motherboards last month, finishing the first 10 months of the year with 23.38 million units. The motherboard giant also shipped 780,000 graphics cards, about 220,000 notebooks and close to one million optical storage drives in October. Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) mobo-shipments dropped 15.3% to 1.71 million. Asustek acquired the Chungli plant from ECS early this year. Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology both enjoyed sales increases in October, with 1,45 million and 1,35 million units, respectively. Asustek aims for 20% rise for motherboards (to 35 million) , 30% for notebooks (tot 1,9 million) in 2004. Achieving the forecast would give Asustek a global market share of 29% next year, based expected sales of 120 million PCs worldwide. The company's diversification program has effectively cut the revenue contribution from motherboards to 30%, the combined ratio of motherboards and notebooks has already fallen to less than 50%. Graphics cards and optical storage devices each account for 5-6% of total revenues. Other business operations like the assembly of PlayStation 2 (PS2) game consoles and other lines, such as handsets and networking devices, make up the remainder.
zs CD-R disc prices to rise
The prices for CD-R discs will rise moderately to $ 0.20-$0.25 in 2004, compared with $0.20-$0.22 currently, according leading Taiwan-based suppliers. CD-R discs were priced at lows of $0.12 earlier this year and then shot up more than 80% to the current level in the fourth quarter due to a surge in global demand, sources said. The sharp price hikes are unlikely to be repeated next year now that global demand has stabilized and most of Taiwan's CD-R disc makers have suspended capacity expansion for CD-R discs. Instead, they have been focusing on expanding production of DVD+R and DVD-R discs. The unit price of around US$0.20 for CD-R discs will enable makers to generate a gross margin of about 30%, which should be sufficient to keep makers from raising their prices furtherd. A recent ruling by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against a request from Royal Philips Electronics to block imports of CD-R discs from Taiwan will also help stabilize CD-R prices in coming months.
Samsung makes PowerPC for IBM
IBM Microelectronics outsourced some PowerPC processor production to Samsung Electronics in the third quarter, according to a Taiwanese IC design source close with IBM. Samsung uses a 0.18-micron process to make IBM's chips at its 8-inch fab. Although Samsung can mass produce the chips for IBM, the current shipment volume is small, the source said. It's speculated that Samsung's goal in this business is not shipment volume, but rather to obtain IP licensing from IBM. Samsung plans to expand in the logic IC arena, with major focus on handset-use chips, sources said.
Intel pushes Canterwood's successor
Intel early this week updated its chipset roadmap and decided to add a new Alderwood chipset to its Grantsdale family. Positioned as the flagship product in the Grantsdale line, the Alderwood chipset will be the successor to the 875P (Canterwood). The new chipset will be available in the second quarter of next year. It will support an 800MHz front-side bus and DDR2 dual-channel memory, in common with the 875P. Intel launched the 875P in April. The chipset is the company's most expensive desktop chipset to date, priced at $53 for a version with integrated software RAID. The FOB (free on board) price of an 875P motherboard is over $150 per unit. It is believed that the Alderwood will continue to help Intel attack the high-end DIY market and boost the company's average selling price.
SmartASIC offers TV tuner box and LCD TV video processing
After settling a patent dispute with Genesis Microchip in January, SmartASIC Technology exited the LCD monitor controller IC market and has concentrated on TV video processors. The company ships over 40,000 TV tuner box video processors each month, for an over 70% share of the Taiwan market. Other products in the have application in progressive scan TVs, LCD TVs and other HDTVs. The wide-XGA-resolution STV 108 series was launched in August 2002. SmartASIC also launched the SXGA STV 110 series in June and has begun volume shipments of LCD TV video processors for customers including Sampo Technology, Proview Electronics, Taiwan Kolin and some Chinese home electronics companies.
Aiming at the home networking market, SmartASIC has also developed wireless solutions, consisting of modules with video processing chips, for application in TV tuner boxes, LCD TVs and media gateways. The company aims to send samples to customers in January and begin volume shipments in the first quarter next year.
Taiwan DVD drive makers may overtake international competitors
Taiwan's suppliers of DVD drives could have the opportunity of repeating the past performance of CD-RW era by overtaking international competitors in 2004 in high-speed models as most of them have shifted focus to the development 12x and 16x drives. DVD drives made in Taiwan formally enter the 8x phase in the final quarter of 2003, although manufacturers' supply volumes still lag those of Japanese competitors. After successively rolling out their 8x DVD+RW models in September and October, leading companies BenQ, Lite-On, and Quanta Storage immediately followed with 8x DVD-dual drives. The products are presently shipped mainly to small- and medium-sized vendors in North America and Europe. Taiwan manufacturers still trail Japanese companies by one to two months. But the gap is already much narrower than the one to two quarters when they started delivering 4x models. These companies, as well as Behavior Tech Computer (BTC) and Accesstek, now keep just one R&D team to develop and fine-tune their 4x and 8x products. The majority of staffers are assigned to speed up the development of 12x and 16x drives. Taiwan suppliers were forced to play the catch-up game in the shipment of 8x drives mainly because the designations of specifications were still controlled by leading European and Japanese optical drive manufacturers, which instantaneously started mass production after completing the setting of specifications. Although Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek has recently started delivering chipsets for 8x DVD drives, it still lags behind multinational suppliers like Philips, NEC, and Sanyo. However, DVD drive makers in Taiwan stressed that they and MediaTek have all transferred focus to 12x and 16x models in order to make a big leap past competitors in other ountries. Most of them think DVD drives, just as shown in CD-RW drives, will have 16-speed as the ultimate model. In spite of the fact that some key components are still controlled by Japanese companies, Taiwan suppliers have gained a stronger competitive position after accumulating much experiences in the manufacture of CD-RW drives plus more than one year making DVD drives. This will help shorten the lead-time for mass delivery. They believe the gradual release of production capacity by Japanese companies will also help improve the chance of achieving explosive growth for Taiwan suppliers of DVD drives.
SiS launches third chipset for AMD Athlon 64
Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) announced the immediate availability of the SiS755FX chipset, the company's third chipset supporting the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 (K8) processor.
The SiS755FX chipset employs SiS's proprietary HyperStreaming Engine technology and integrates with AMD's exclusive 1GHz HyperTransport technology, as well as the 8/16-bits connection technology to deliver the front-side bus (FSB) transmission speed up to 8GB/sec (2000MT).
It is the first chipset with full support for 939pins AMD Athlon 64 FX CPU and 1GHz HyperTransport interface, the company claimed. Other special features include 8 built-in USB2.0 ports, which meet the requirement for increasing peripheral device connections, full 5.1 channel surround sound, V.90 modem and Ethernet network. The SiS964 also supports Multiple RAID disk array modes, including RAID0, RAID1, and JBOD, which further enhance the stability and performance of the operating environment.
Shuttle expects XPC
Shuttle expects shipments of its XPC mini-barebone systems will grow 25-27% to as many as 750,000 units next year.
Taiwan's Market Intelligence Center (MIC) estimates that mini-barebone systems will account for 1.5%, or 1.659 million units, of a forecast 110.6-million-unit desktop shipments this year. With launches of new models based on Intel's introduction of Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) form factor specification hitting the market, Shuttle estimated the market would grow 15-20% next year to over 1.9 million units.
Shuttle said its XPC shipments are likely to be between 550,000 and 600,000 units this year, surging 120-140% from 250,000 units last year. The company shipped 373,000 XPCs in the first three quarters of this year. Fueled by demand from both clone and OEM orders, Shuttle expects its XPC monthly shipments will exceed 55,000 units in both November and December.
The company, which focuses more on the clone market, estimated that OEM orders would only account for 5-10% of its total XPC orders this year. The company said an "obvious" result from the OEM/ODM sectors is likely to take place in 2005.
NEC places notebook order with Quanta
Japanese electronics giant NEC has ordered over one million notebooks from Quanta Computer, with delivery to start at the end of the first quarter or early in the second quarter of next year, according to sources close to the deal.
This is actually a follow-up order to NEC's 2003 fall order placed with Quanta, the sources said.The million notebooks, which will account for about 60-70% of NEC's 2004 projected sales volume of 1.5 million units, will be produced at Quanta's plant in Songjiang, Jiangsu Province (China). Quanta declined to comment on the order, citing client confidentiality.Continued cooperation with Quanta will strengthen NEC's competitiveness in Japan and around the world, the sources said.
NEC, the largest PC vendor in Japan with a 25-30% share in the market, is facing an increasing challenge from US-based Dell, which is striving to expand in Japan and might dethrone NEC from its leading position, the sources said.
Quanta, which previously was unable to ship the whole amount of notebooks required by NEC because it has to allocate production capacity to manufacture notebooks for Dell, is now able to satisfy both parties, according to the sources.
MIC: Notebooks one-fourth of total PC sales
Notebooks will account for 25% of global PC shipments this year, with the proportion expected to grow to 33% in 2006, according to Charles Chou, an analyst at Taiwan-based Market Intelligence Center (MIC). Global notebook shipments are expected to reach 37.566 million units this year and grow to 63.732 million units in 2006, according to Chou.
The US and Europe will continue to be the major notebook markets worldwide, seizing over 60% of the pie, he said. As international vendors inevitably have to lower their production costs in the intensified price competition, Taiwan is expected to enjoy continuous growth in orders from major brands, he said.
Strong sales for low-priced notebooks are expected to continue. Notebooks shipped this year with a price tag of below US$1,500 are expected to account for over half of total notebook shipments, or 13% of total PC sales, according to Chou.