- Faced with a progressively shrinking global PDA market, major brand-name vendors Palm, HP, and Dell have boosted outsourcing to Taiwanese maker diversify product lines and control costs. Combined with Taiwanese makers' branded rollouts and orders from West European operators, Taiwanese PDA shipment volume once again saw dramatic growth, climbing 70% year on year to just under 1.8 million units in the first quarter of 2004.
Taiwanese fourth quarter PDA shipment value was US$340 million. Yet with ASP (Average Selling Price) demonstrating a near 20% year on year decline to US$185, shipment value achieved 35% growth, far behind the increase seen in volume. Heavy outsourcing of value-line models to Taiwanese makers by Palm contributed greatly to this phenomenon.
However, compared to the fourth quarter of 2003, product line diversification among vendors led to the change of Taiwanese PDA product mix. PDA phone share increased to more than 7%, and models with built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) modules have become the mainstream, accounting for more than 60% of all Taiwanese PDA. The rapid replacement of traditional PDAs boosted ASP (Average Selling Price) in the first quarter, leading to a slight sequential gain of 3%.
Although seasonal effects are expected to dominate the PDA market in the second quarter of 2004, the continual shipment of existing models from Taiwanese makers, and the rollouts of many new PDA in coordination with international brand-name vendors and operators in Western Europe are forecasted to boost PDA shipment volume to over 1.8 million units. However, there is only a limited supply of key components such as TFT (Thin-Film Transistor) or LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-Silicon) panels. The level of Taiwanese makers' control over these components will be the key factor to Taiwanese PDA industry shipment performance in the second quarter.