14 DAY TRIAL // Notebook manufacturers and vendors announced at the beginning of the year high target shipments and record sales as the mobile computing market seemed ready to absorb all the systems thrown at it. For the first time in the history of computing, laptop and notebook shipments equaled - and in some cases even went over - the desktop sales and demand. This market trend of increasing the demand of portable computing solutions is due to the fact that all across the board laptops and notebooks are finally catching up with the desktop systems performance wise and their price is decreasing at a steady pace.
After some months of excellent business, most laptop and notebook manufacturers and vendors may find themselves stranded and unable to satisfy the demand for more portable devices as there is a growing shortage of critical computer hardware parts like display panels, analog ICs, battery cells, optical drives, printed circuit boards (PCBs for short) and aluminum-based capacitors according to the site DigiTimes which cites several Taiwanese notebook makers. Even if the major brands are less affected by the shortage, as they have larger inventories and are better supplied, the whole industry looks towards the components suppliers that even delayed some orders to the third quarter. All top notebook manufacturers and vendors are experiencing problems in keeping up with the demand as Dell's 8-series consumer notebooks are in short supply both in Taiwan and in China.
Meanwhile, Acer is running low of graphics chips from both AMD and Nvidia and besides the company is experiencing problems keeping its deliveries schedules. The most severe shortage was registered on the 12.1 inch panel setup, while the HP company is having similar problems with its latest family of 12.1 inch notebooks. One of the most important manufacturers and suppliers of mobile computing parts, Quanta, said that some parts are available in quantity.
Apart from batteries, another problem is the optical drives shortage that makes producers like Lite-On reach full production capacity without being able to deliver enough parts. As a number of retail customers already sent orders for a great number of DVD burners designed for laptops and notebooks, the supply chain is even more sluggish now.