Notebook ODMs Compal Electronics, Wistron and Inventec saw their revenues drop by double-digit percentages on month in January, with their sales likely to continue to decline in February before rebounding in March, according to industry sources.

Compal's January revenues reached NT$68.74 billion (US$2.18 billion) for January, down 17.1% sequentially but up 28.5% on year. Notebook shipments totaled 3.1 million units in January, down from 3.9-4 million units shipped a month earlier.

Compal expects its shipments to drop 15-20% sequentially in the first quarter due mainly to seasonality. However, shipments of smartphones and tablets are likely to stay flat in January.

Compal also shipped 160,000 LCD TVs in January and expects total shipments for the first quarter to dip in a range of 10-15% from 700,000-800,000 units shipped a quarter earlier.

Wistron saw its revenues drop 18.3% on month but rise 26.4% on year to NT$49.33 billion in January and its notebook shipments sink 15% sequentially to 1.7 million units in the month.

Wistron expects its notebook shipments to drop another 15% sequentially in February and dip 15% for all of the first quarter. Meanwhile, shipments of non-notebook products will stay flat or decline slightly in February but will slide 10-15% on quarter during the first quarter.

Inventec saw revenues tumble 18.7% on month and 29.5% on year to NT$29.87 billion in January, as notebook shipments plunged 21.4% to 1.1 million units from 1.4 million shipped a month earlier.

Notebook vendor Acer posted revenues of NT$28.98 billion, down 21.6% on month but up 5.8% on year. Acer expects its core businesses and newly developed products to grow steadily in 2015.