HP is buying laptops

THE MAKER of precious printer ink, HP has been seen splashing out large among its laptop suppliers in Taiwan.

According to DigiTimes, HP ordered an estimated 3.2 to 3.3 million notebooks from Taiwan's top-four ODMs last month, rising by 15 per cent on the month. That volume is expected to increase further to 3.5 million units in September due to preparations for holiday season buying and the launch of Windows 7 in October.

If the figures are correct they indicate that HP thinks the recession is over and people will want to buy lots of its hardware in the run-up to Christmas. This is particularly because Windows 7 will be in the shops and it will run better on laptops than the asthmatic turtle that is Windows Vista.

Inventec landed orders for over one million units from HP in August, while Quanta and Compal each booked orders for around 700,000 units. Wistron saw its August shipments increase by 30,000 to 50,000 units.

DigiTimes said that although the deals were significant they are eclipsed by Acer's efforts in the US. The word on the street is that Acer will take the lead in the notebook market in September with its shipments having a chance to surpass 3.6 million units. Acer could ship over nine million notebooks in the third quarter. µ