Global top-five brand vendors and top-three ODMs all enjoyed over 15% on-month shipment growth (not including detachable models) in June, buoyed by the release of new models and fresh demand for notebooks after Microsoft discontinued support for Windows XP, according to Digitimes Research.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) led brand vendors with the highest 25% on-month shipment growth in June, while Compal Electronics outperformed other OEMs enjoying an over 20% sequential growth. Combined shipments of the top-three ODMs totaled over 10 million units in June, a previous record that they reached 18 months ago. The top-five brands also managed to maintain their shipments flat or continued growing for straight six months as compared to the same months a year earlier.

However, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is expected to suspend notebook production at its plant in Chongqing in 2015 as the company is likely to phase out from the ODM notebook business and refit the Chongqing production base for other products.

Meanwhile, Sony may resume marketing of its Vaio notebooks but will limit sales in Japan only. As a result, its shipment volumes will not be able to match to its previous records.

As being highlighted at the recently concluded Computex Taipei 2014 and GoogleI/O 2014, Chromebooks are to be integrated with more Android applications, and therefore Chromebooks are expected to start enhancing their presence in the consumer market from the second half of 2014, Digitimes Research commented.