What They Say
Digitimes Research reported that notebook sales (excluding those with detachable keyboards) were down 8.7% sequentially in Q1 2021 to 57.51 million as good demand from education and gaming helped a smaller decline than normal seasonal patterns. Total shipments arte expected to be more than 62 million units in Q2 despite continuing component shortages and that’s up around 10% on Q1. The firm expects HP to see Chromebook sales growth, while Lenovo may be below the market trend because of the end of Japan’s Giga school project. Dell is expected to do well, but Apple is said to be more focussed on iPad Pro and iMacs than MacBooks.
Samsung is also expected to do well as it has put more emphasis on notebooks as an important segment for the future.
Wistron and Pegatron will see shipment share increases from US and Taiwanese clients, respectively in the second quarter, compared to the first.
TN panels in 11.6-inch size and SD resolution, the most adopted screens among education notebooks, are currently experiencing the worst short supply and having the highest price hikes compared to other panels. Related timing controller (TCON), display driver IC (DDIC) and power management ICs (PMIC) are also in tight supply at the moment.
Separately, Digitimes Research said that Chromebook shipments stayed above 10 million in Q1, despite a decline since Q4 of around 9%. Compared to Q1 2020, however, the market was 280% up, the firm said.
What We Think
The comment about Apple is interesting. It would have been good to know if this was based on some good evidence or just speculation. Apple is reported to be not far from releasing its M2 chip with some suggesting July as a start date, probably in an MacBook Pro as the M1 versions of the chip are less than a year old. (BR)
HP is offering 9 clamshell Chromebooks as ‘ready to ship’ at the moment on HP.com
