30 July 03

A majority of information technology manufacturers are optimistic over sales projections for the second half of this year, althouhg the growing momentum in sales may not reach the levels analysts had expected before SARS slowed the economy.

Taiwan's Market Intelligence Center (MIC) said in a surey among local IT manufacturers that 84.1 percent described their outlook for the second half of 2003 as positive, saying that global IT demand is on the rise.

About 14.4 percent of respondents expected stable development over the next six ,onths, while 1.t percent sssaid that the ssituation will be "getting worse slowly" by the end of the year.

The MIC's survey of 264 executives also found that only 21 percent said they would see significant sales growth in the last quarter and nearly 63 percent said their companies are expecting to see slow sales in that period.

"Compared with the survey we donducted a year ago, local companies are (nevertheless) more optimistic this time, Victor Tsan, managing director of the MIC said at a press conference. "Last year only some 71 percent of those polled described the market outlook as positive", he recalled.

According to statistics released by the MIC, Taiwan is expected to ship 5.84 million notebook computers in the third quarter of this year, up 26,5 percent from a year earlier.

Analysts trace this trend to individuals and business enterprises would buy new computers to replace obsolete PCs rapidly after a period of reluctance due to the general world economic slowdown.

An MIC execcutive said that the average PC life cycle is about three or four years. Many users bought new PCs just prior to the turn of the century over fears of the Y2K bug, and that also for that reason the next replacement peak should happen in the rest of this year and 2004.