ACCORDING TO A SENIOR EXECUTIVE at the notebook battery maker, Simplo Technology, the shortages in lithium-ion batteries, which are currently badly affecting the sales of laptop computers, should have passed by Q3 of 2008.

Last month a destructive fire at LG Chem in South Korea sent stocks of the batteries up in smoke, ironically just as demand for notebooks and portable computers heated up.

Maker of the Eee PC, Asustek Computer, has already admitted that the scarcity of batteries has affected its shipping potential, especially painful in a year where the company could have easily exceeded its 5 million unit shipment target. And they are not alone to feel deprived. Chairman of Taiwanese computer maker Acer, J.T. Wang, told investors at a company conference last week that the battery shortage would “hurt every brand".

But Sung Fu-hsang, chairman of Simplo, which is an independent battery maker, was optimistic that the crisis would have fizzled out by the third quarter of 2008, an especially crucial period for laptop sales, as children and college students go back to their studies after the summer break. It is also the quarter immediately before the busy Christmas season.

Until then, however, it is mainly the smaller companies that will feel the pain from battery shortages as the larger companies with the bigger contracts are usually the first ones to get their supplies. Power, eh? µ

L’Inq
PC World