Notebook shipments to fall under 150 million mark this year?

A new report by Digitimes research predicts global sales of notebooks will fall 7.3 percent this year, to a figure below 150 million units. The research agency points to continued weak demand for computers, including weakening demand from emerging countries, and points out that Windows 10 Anniversary Update doesn't bring enough to the table to convince users to buy a new PC.

In the second half of the year, US-based vendors will perform better than the rest of the first-tier brand vendors. Hewlett-Packard (HP) will become more aggressive on price competition in the second half with complete product lines and will surpass Lenovo to become the largest in the third quarter by a small shipment gap, according to Digitimes Research's latest notebook report.

Dell, which mainly focuses on the enterprise sector, will see growing shipments in both the third and fourth quarters, but the growth scale will not be as strong as those of competitors that mainly target the consumer sector.

Apple had an unsatisfactory shipment performance in the first half of the year, but its notebook shipments in the second half will grow over 40% from the first with upgrades in mid-range and high-end MacBook products.

But while the overall laptop market is in bad shape, some segments do better than others. Digitimes foresees strong growth for the gaming laptop segment, this sector is expected to see shipments of 4.5 million units in 2016, up 12.5 percent year-over-year. MSI in particular is performing very strong, with its shipments expected to soar to 1.2 million units this year, versus 900,000 units in 2015. Thanks to this big surge, MSI is anticipated to surpass ASUS in the gaming laptop market in terms of shipments and profits.

Countries including China, South Korea and Russia are treating e-sports as an official sport, and have been aggressively nurturing the industry. As a result, worldwide gaming notebook shipments have been rising over the past couple of years. Virtual reality becoming a new trend for 2017, and is also expected to increase related shipments.