Taiwan- and China-based second and third-tier notebook ODMs including Shuttle, Clevo, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Uniwill, Malata and BYD are facing declining orders in 2016 as global notebook shipments are expected to drop another 5%, but first-tier ODMs including Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Inventec, Wistron, Pegatron Technology, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and LCFC have together accounted for over 90% of the notebook market, leaving only limited orders for the remaining players.

Quanta's notebook shipments dropped 10% on year in 2015, while Wistron's shipments dropped around 8.5%. Compal, Inventec and Pegatron were able to maintain their shipments at around the same level as in 2014.

Shuttle, which entered the notebook ODM business at the end of 2009, continued to suffer from declines over the past few years and saw its revenues drop 25% on year in 2015. Some market watchers believe Shuttle's notebook orders are likely to drop sharply in 2016 and may cause the player to consider leaving the notebook ODM industry.

Clevo continues to receive orders for high-end gaming notebooks from Razer, China-based Haier and white-box vendors. However, Razer's recent partnership with Lenovo, and white-box brand vendors' dropping orders are both expected to impact Clevo's notebook shipments in 2016.

ECS is mainly receiving orders for Intel's educational tablets and notebooks and is supplying mainly to Latin America. However, with procurement orders for 2016 still not yet clear, ECS may not see any major growth from the notebook business in 2016.

China-based BYD and Malata only have orders for a few million units in 2016 and will only see limited profits from these orders. LCFC, Compal's joint venture with Lenovo, will also see limited growth in 2016 due to Lenovo's weak notebook shipments.

Although Uniwill has orders from Acer, the company will have less than one million units of shipments in 2016 due to Acer's declining sales.