Notebook average price slump starts to bite

A REPORT from Taiwanese government quango the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) said that a decline in average selling prices for notebooks is beginning to hurt shipment value.

While the Taiwanese notebook industry shipped around 19.6 million units in Q2 2007, a 40 per cent year on year increase in volumes, the average selling price fell to $553 with shipment value up 31.5 per cent year on year, amounting to $10.24 billion.

Taiwan accounts for the lion share of notebooks worldwide. Multinational firms like Dell and HP rely on original design manufacturers (ODMs) to build systems for them. The MIC reckons Taiwanese makers account for over 70 per cent of total notebook shipments.

In the first quarter of this year, said MIC, Taiwanese vendors shipped 18.5 million units, a 40.9 per cent increase year on year, but a drop of 6.9 per cent compared to Q4 2006.

Acer bumped up its share of notebook shipments in the first quarter of this year, said MIC. µ