Quanta, the largest manufacturer of notebooks in the world, said it had to cut the staff at its Taiwan production line to less than 2,000 — down from 3,000 in the first half of 2011. The most probable reason? Slow sales of RIM‘s tablet computer, the PlayBook.
While the exact number of PlayBooks sold so far is unknown, analysts peg the number at around 700,000 for the first half of the year — a disappointing number for RIM, which had hoped to sell around 4 to 5 million in 2011.
Furthermore, RIM recently announced it shipped just 200,000 PlayBook tablets in Q2, compared to 500,000 in the first quarter.
Quanta spokesman Elton Yang said the company plans to keep staff levels at the Taiwan production line at a minimum. Although Yang would not officially confirm it, analysts claim that Quanta’s Taiwan factory was used specifically for PlayBook production.
Even though the work force cuts will have a limited impact on Quanta, as RIM accounts for less than 1% of Quanta’s revenue, things are looking dismal for RIM’s PlayBook and the company’s revenues, which fell sharply after the disappointing second quarter of 2011.
Source : Reuters