Taiwan reaches for larger slice of NB

Recently, Taiwan's share of the growing notebook market is expected to continue slowly rising. But systems makers on the island nation face challenges such as the transition to LED backlights and the need to expand their overseas markets.

In Taiwan at least 15 companies currently design and make notebooks for major brand name companies. Two of those former no-name manufacturers—Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer--have established significant notebook businesses under their own brands, thanks in part to their close ties to the many key component suppliers in Taiwan.

Acer now ranks third and Asus eighth in the 137 million/year worldwide market for notebooks. Both companies are well positioned for market share gains. However, Acer still lacks a strong high-end product line and Asus has virtually no presence in the North America market, he added. For its part, Asus defined what Chen refers to as a new segment of the notebook market with its eePC. This market for very low power, size and weight machines could expand to 12 million units this year with new models expected from the likes of Dell, HP and others this fall.

p>Taiwan has for years made the vast majority of the world's notebooks. Japan's notebook makers such as NEC, Toshiba and Sony still make about 15 percent of their systems in house, but that percentage may fall slightly as more work goes to Taiwan. The number of no-name notebook makers has been steady for some time, but could shrink in the near future. The latest quarterly report ranked the top four Taiwan contract notebook makers as Quanta (at 31 percent of the market), Compal (24 percent), Wistron (16) and Inventec (11).

The biggest technical challenge all notebook makers face this year is in making the transition to LED backlighting for their displays. Only three percent of notebooks used LED backlights last year, but that is rising rapidly with about 13 percent expected to use the technology in 2008.

LED backlights can lower system power consumption by as much as ten percent while opening the door to thinner and lighter systems. However, panel makers must overcome problems dissipating the heat of the LEDs.