TAIWAN - The notebook PC industry in Taiwan hit a new record high for a single quarter, shipping slightly over 28 million notebook computers in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a report by Taiwan's International Data Corporation (IDC).

The number was an increase of 11.6% percent from the previous quarter with growth of 44% year-over-year. The report says that shipments were driven by rising market demand and holiday purchases.

Of the shipments, the report said that 88.5% were delivered by five of Taiwan's original design manufacturers: Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Wistron Corp., Inventec Corp. and ASUSTek Computer. Notebook production during the period was $15 billion, for a year-over-year increase of 31.6%, the report said.

IDC Taiwan research manager Helen Chiang said domestic notebook manufacturers performed better than expected because of brisk sales by the major manufacturers of consumer PCs.

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TAIPEI - Sanmina-SCI Corporation has reported that it has signed a definitive agreement with Foxteq Holdings, a subsidiary of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, under which Foxteq will buy some of the US firm's personal computing related operations and logistics businesses in Hungary, Mexico and the US.

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TAIWAN - Asustek is expected to outsource over 50% of its branded motherboard manufacturing to outside OEMs by the end of 2008, as well as outsourcing notebook products approximately 15%, according to an industry report citing predictions by electronic industry watchers.

According to the report, while Asustek and its division Unihan Technology have already separated, market watchers commented that the percentage of Asustek's product outsourcing to Unihan is still high, indicating that the spin-off is not complete.

Company president Jerry Shen pointed out that the company will prioritize the outsourcing of non-notebook products first.