The worldwide top-5 notebook brand vendors saw their combined shipments in February grow 20% on month and 22% on year, while the top-3 ODMs' shipments also experienced 10% on-month and 30% on-year growths in the month as demand was better than expected. In addition, the Lunar New Year holidays in 2017 fell mainly in January, which created limited impact on February's working hours.
After suffering from a 50% on-month decline in January, Hewlett-Packard's (HP) shipments enjoyed a strong rebound in February with a shipment lead of over 500,000 units compared to the second-largest Lenovo. Dell did not achieve an on-month shipment growth as strong as in February in 2016, but its shipments in February 2017 still grew by a single-digit percentage from the previous month, according to Digitimes Research's figures.
Acer's shipments performed better than expected in February thanks to increased Chromebook shipments, and the company also became the fourth-largest vendor worldwide in the month, surpassing Asustek.
As for ODMs, Compal Electronics became the largest notebook maker and Inventec the fourth largest in February thanks to a strong increase in orders from HP.
