14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that not all companies are expecting changes to their market shares and target shipments over the ongoing quarter, and even Acer may end the current three-month period with as many shipments as it first expected.
Not too long ago, a rumor arose saying that HP expects to see a particularly good fourth quarter, with top sales during November and December.
This, of course, is based on what the company expects demand to become now that the holiday shopping season is drawing near.
On the other hand, it seems that not all PC makers are expected to see too stellar a surge in sales, at least no greater than the one they first forecasted.
A recent report made by Digitimes pays special mind to the situation on Acer's side of the field, specifically that of some of its upstream suppliers.
Acer notebooks are manufactured by several companies in Taiwan, with the more important ones being Compal Electronics and Wistron.
These two also receive orders from the likes of Lenovo and Dell, and while the supposedly promising holiday season is approaching, the manufacturers don't seem particularly impressed.
In fact, they are of the opinion that their shipments will not increase overmuch, which means that they are conservative about how many orders they expect to receive.
Granted, if Acer gets rush orders by the end of the month, they will get to see some actual growth as well.
Still, Compal believes that it will ship a total of 14.5 million units in Q4 2010, which would mean a 7% sequential boost, and Wistron will stay flat at seven million notebooks.
All in all, Acer is expected to maintain its sequential shipment target of 5-10% growth for the quarter.
What remains to be seen is just how the top global suppliers of PCs end up splitting the market share and if there will be any major changes is who gets which position.