- The Taiwanese PDA industry's production volume is expected to grow 65.9% to 5.2 million units in 2003, constituting 30% of total global production. New product launches and increased outsourcing to Taiwanese manufacturers, stronger market segmentation, and the diffusion of portable applications and services should all serve to boost the Taiwanese PDA industry's production volume in 2003. 

According to Market Intelligence Center (MIC), there is a strong possibility that orders for the Palm OS 5.0 model slated for launch in 2003 will be placed with Taiwanese manufacturers. Beginning in 2002, Taiwanese makers began receiving production orders for the popular PDA brand, a trend that should continue as new Palm models are introduced. 

In addition to Palm, many major international vendors entering the PDA market are expected to follow the same collaborative model with Taiwanese manufacturers as they did with PC products, outsourcing production to Taiwan for cost benefits. As the PDA market reaches maturity and product segmentation grows stronger, there will be opportunities for second-tier Taiwanese makers to fill orders for value-line PDA models, increasing overall Taiwanese PDA production volume. "Demand for portable data management, information access, and multimedia entertainment has also increased," adds Luke Li-Hsin Chen, an analyst at MIC.  

The Taiwanese PDA industry is expected to grow 50% in 2002, reaching 20.2% of global production at 3.1 million units. With the retail season just around the corner and expected PDA product launches from Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens, the second half of 2002 should see a new wave of growth. 

However, in the first half of 2002, global economic woes convinced many PDA vendors to postpone product launches, resulting in less orders for Taiwanese PDA manufacturers and slowing year-on-year growth to 41.3% for the first half of 2002, at 1.3 million units. 

Production value in the first half of 2002 rose 32.3% to US$ 287 million, a marked decrease from the 159.9% year-on-year growth experienced in 2001. "The huge jump in production value for 2001 was largely due to the shift in production away from value-line models to higher-priced Pocket PCs. As Pocket PCs became established as the mainstream, production value again assumed a steadier growth rate," explained Chen. 

The share of Taiwanese PDA production taking place in China also increased markedly in the first half of 2002, compared to the first half of 2001. Penbex and other Taiwanese own-brand PDA makers have established production facilities in China and collaborated with domestic manufacturers there as well, with the aim of developing the market. "Taiwanese own brand PDA manufacturers have moved production to China in order to narrow the distance to Chinese consumers," added Chen. "Although OEM/ODM production continues to increase, in the future China will become crucial for incubating Taiwanese own brand PDA production." 

For a more detailed analysis, please refer to "The Taiwanese PDA Industry 1H 2002," or visit MIC's web site at https://mic.iii.org.tw.