ODM Compal Electronics aims to ship 100 million notebooks, tablets, AIO (all-in-one) PCs, smartphones, LCD TVs and servers in total in 2015, according to company president Ray Chen.

Compal shipped 43 million notebooks in 2014 and expects 2015 shipments to remain unchanged, Chen said. The company shipped nearly 20 million smartphones and four million LCD TVs in 2014 and expects 2015 shipments to increase to 40 million and 4.5 million units, respectively, Chen noted.

Compal expects server business operations to suffer continued net operating losses in 2015 and to swing into profitability in 2016. Compal will expand its server R&D staff to 300-350 members in the second quarter of 2015.

Following its merger with affiliated handset ODM Compal Communications in March 2014, Compal has used the latter's factory in Nanjing, eastern China, to produce tablets and shifted smartphone production to its factory in Kunshan, eastern China, Chen indicated.

To cope with continual wage hikes and labor shortages in China, Compal will set up smartphone production lines at its existing factory in Hanoi, northern Vietnam, with smartphone shipments expected to account for 10-15% of its total smartphone shipments at the end of 2015 and for 25% in 2016. Wage rates in Vietnam are about half of those in China and in addition, average turnover rate in Vietnam is only 2% while in China it is 20%, Chen said.

Compal has begun to produce smartphones at its notebook factory in Brazil. In addition to ODM production of smartphones, China-based vendor Huawei Technologies will have Compal produce 4G base station equipment at the factory.

While several market research companies forecast global tablet demand in 2015 to grow on year by 5-6%, Chen holds the opinion that demand will decrease by at least 10% mainly due to competition from large-screen smartphones. The tablet supply chain in Shenzhen has been shrinking and therefore shipments of white-box tablets in 2015 will significantly decrease, Chen said.