Apple is the only vendor that managed to keep its fourth-quarter notebook shipments staying at the same level recorded in the third quarter, and even saw its shipments of MacBook Air models increase to 1.2 million units in the fourth quarter from one million in the previous quarter, according to DigiTimes Research (http://www.digitimes.com).
Otherwise, shipments of notebooks by Taiwan makers posted a decline of 5.7% on quarter and 4.4% on year in the fourth quarter of 2011, affected by a downturn in the global economy and shortage in the supply of hard disc drives (HDDs), the article ads. However, the decline rate in notebook shipments by Taiwan makers was lower than that for the global notebook industry in the fourth quarter thanks to a switch of orders by Hewlett-Packard from Flextronics International to Taiwan makers, and a sharp decline in notebook shipments by Samsung Electronics that affected global notebook shipments, says DigiTimes Research.