Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Current Issue

News

by Mike Buetow

ROGERSTONE, South Wales, Jan. 15 - Ultra Electronics Sonar and Communication Systems has awarded a major defense electronics contract to Ttems, a provider of EMS services. Under terms of the deal, worth a reported £6 million over the next 10 years, Ttems will build sonobuoys as part of a program for the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

TTems will be involved in design and manufacturing the sonobuoys.

Sonobuoys are devices that can be dropped from helicopters to detect and locate underwater objects by reflecting/intercepting acoustic waves from an underwater, surface, or above surface acoustic source. The sonobuoys operate in the same way that radar and radio direction finding equipment operate with electromagnetic waves.

U.K.-based Ttems is a subsidiary of TT electronics. It is comprised of AB Electronic Assemblies in Rogerstone, South Wales, and Welwyn Systems in Blyth, Northumberland.

FRAMINGHAM, MA, Jan. 18 - Manufacturers in 2005 will look for ways to drive down the cost of information delivery while seeking opportunities to invest in product development, demand management and supply network operations.

So says a new report from Manufacturing Insights. The research firm also says

Profitable growth remains at the top of the manufacturer's agenda, but will come from emerging markets and new services.
Smart companies will combine Lean, Six Sigma, and IT investment oversight into a common transformation governance structure.

Renewed interest in supply chain applications and projects that deliver "productive fulfillment."

Supply chains will be calibrated to demand information making the aggregation, organization, and integration of this information critical to success.

Use of best practices such as product portfolio management will be become more widespread.

Manufacturing Insights is an arm of IDC Co., the market research firm.

FRAMINGHAM, MA, Jan. 18 - The worldwide PC market remained strong in the fourth quarter of 2004 with growth of 13.7% driven by smaller businesses and holiday consumer demand, according to IDC.

Shipments rose to 51.5 million units for the quarter, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth and beating projections of 13% growth.

Shipments for all of 2004 reached 177.5 million units on growth of 14.7%, representing peak recovery following the market contraction of 2001. Total shipments in 2004 were more than 26% over 2000 volumes.

IDC forecasts growth of 10% in 2005 followed by declining growth in the single digits.

"Business demand and growth in key regions like EMEA continue to drive the market," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. "Although we saw a seasonal rise in consumer shipments, business remains a larger market and has been growing faster since mid-2004. Ongoing PC replacements and new investment should continue to drive commercial growth at least through the end of 2005."

Dell is now the uncontested market leader. After ceding the top spot to HP in the fourth quarter of 2002 and 2003 following HP's merger with Compaq, Dell managed to distance itself from HP by a full point of market share in the fourth quarter, and seems to have the momentum on its side.

Significant improvements were seen from Gateway and Apple.

"The fourth quarter of 2004 represented a milestone in the personal computing industry, as total worldwide volume exceed the figure of 47.4 million set a decade ago in 1994 for the entire year," said Roger Kay, vice president. "Spending on PCs by all sizes of business continues to improve steadily, and consumers came out in force in the holiday quarter to pursue their growing interest in PCs and the digital lifestyle."

Other findings:

Dell - Dell managed another strong quarter and maintained its top rank with a solid performance across regions and total shipment growth of more than 21%. The strong results further consolidated Dell's lead, preventing HP from taking back the top rank as it did in the fourth quarter of 2002 and 2003.
HP - HP remained a strong second, benefiting from sequential growth in EMEA and the consumer segment. Nevertheless, overall growth of 9% was slightly slower than the market.
IBM - IBM shipped record volumes in the fourth quarter and grew worldwide shipments by 9% year on year with strong portables growth. News of the sale of IBM's PC Division to Lenovo in December temporarily slowed sales in the U.S., although demand picked up again by the end of the month.
Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens - Fujitsu Siemens had a solid quarter, keeping pace with growth in the EMEA market, but facing a tough market in Japan.
Toshiba - Toshiba continues to benefit from the mobile adoption trend, growing roughly on par with overall portable shipments.
Gateway - Gateway saw a strong sequential increase as it worked through merger issues and took advantage of demand in small business and consumer segments. Although year-on-year growth was behind the market, the fourth quarter marks the first positive growth since the merger with eMachines, and is an important step in moving the company forward.
Acer - Acer had another strong quarter led by aggressive growth in EMEA, which represented over 70% of Acer's worldwide shipments for the quarter.
Apple - Apple had a notably strong quarter, with growth of more than 25%. This gain represents a significant improvement over prior quarters, reflecting the introduction of the G5 iMac as well as some substantiation that PC sales have benefited from the popularity of Apple's music business.