Notebook shipments from the top-5 brand vendors were better than expected in January 2014, showing an increase of 9% from a year earlier despite a 15% decline from the previous month, according to Digitimes Research.

　　Asustek outperformed other vendors with a 25% sequential gain in January with shipments, excluding the convertible model T100, reaching 1.5 million units. Additionally, shipments of T100 nearly doubled in January as compared to the previous month.

　　Apple, Lenovo and Dell followed Asustek in terms of shipments in January, said Digitimes Research, adding that Apple is likely to maintain a shipment volume of over one million units a month in the first quarter, powered by its MacBook Pro with Retina display.

　　Among ODMs, Inventec and Pegatron performed relatively strong in January after they posted significant shipment declines a month earlier, while sequential drops posted by Quanta, Compal Electronics and Wistron were in line with market expectations.

　　Meanwhile, China-based TsinghuaTongfang has set up a new notebook ODM company, with more than 100 of its staff members coming from Taiwan-based Shuttle.The new ODM will engage in ODM production of notebooks and tablets and will begin to affect Shuttle's business in early 2014, said Digitimes Research.