THE WORLD'S BIGGEST manufacturer of laptops, Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, has raised its shipping targets for this year by a whopping 25 per cent.

The company - which makes laptops for just about every box-badger you'd care to mention including HP and Dell - shipped 32 million units last year. Projections for this year were originally set at 36 million units, but a recent revision in the company's outlook raises the ante to 40 million.

The most surprising aspect of the new numbers is that they don't include any provision for what is expected to be the biggest growth sector in the laptop market, the ultra low-cost thigh-tops being announced in ever-increasing flavours by world+wife.

"We don't know what demand for low-cost laptops will be so we can't really give you a figure," said CC Leung, vice chairman and president of Quanta in a report by PCWorld.com.

Doom and gloom about a downturn in the global economy has failed to dent the company's optimism with Leung remarking, "It looks like there will be some impact on the notebook market in the US, but Europe and other areas are OK." µ