While Taiwan-based ODMs shipped more notebooks than originally expected in December 2015, this was not due to rebounding demand, and global notebook demand will remain weak in the first half of 2016, but may rebound in the second half, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Apple is expected to see on-year growth in 2016 notebook shipments, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell, and Lenovo will see flat shipments and Acer and Asustek Computer may see declines.

Quanta Computer shipped four million notebooks in December 2015, up 200,000 units from November, while Compal shipped 3.7 million units in the month and Inventec shipped 1.85 million PCs including notebooks, all-in-one PCs and thin clients.

The sources pointed out that notebook brand vendors are conservative about their operations in the first half and are turning to place short-term orders, but such a strategy could pose risks to ODMs and will challenge ODMs' inventory management.

With order visibility weakening, ODMs are seeing difficulty accurately estimating their annual notebook shipments for 2016. Since related upstream supply chain makers need to adopt a more flexible strategy for their production, and the China government continues to raise the minimum wage, ODMs are expected to face challenges in the first half.