Flextronics lends orders from HP

Although not big right now, but the relationship may grow in the future

Singapore-based notebook manufacturer Flextronics International has obtained orders for notebook from HP and will begin to ship two models as early as the end of September 2009 with an initial monthly volume of 50,000-60,000 units – as reported by Digitimes.

Although this order only accounts for about 2-4% of HP's total notebook shipments, both the new partners have confirmed that the partnership will still create a competition towards Taiwan-based notebook makers, and it only has a scope of growing from here.

Flextronics has recently established an R&D facility in Taiwan and will employ over 1,500 engineers over the next few years, which might result in a massive headhunt war in the notebook industry since Flextronics is expected to offer a better package than Taiwan-based notebook makers.

HP has not been in the news for some time now, especially after the netbook industry flourished so massively. The US-based company brought out a few models a while ago, but has not been very successful. Recently they have decided to phase out the Mini 2140 to bring in another model called 2150 shortly. The new HP Mini 2140 netbook was a top-end netbook equipped with a 10.2-inch 16:9 display. The manufacturer offered two different versions of the screen, which differ by their resolution. One offered 1.024 x 576 pixels and the other one provided a resolution of 1.366 x 768 pixels. The reasons for phasing it out should involve the latest 11.6-inch craze in the market, or more practically maybe an updated version is on the way with some latest technologies like built-in 3G etc.

At the same time there has been a flurry of Taiwanese netbook producers in recent past. The already existing manufacturers are accompanied by the notebook-part manufacturers. Brands like Asus, MSI are joint by smaller companies like Manli, Inventec, Casing Macron etc.

About Flestronics

Flextronics International Ltd. is a contract electronics maker that provides electronics manufacturing facilities to original equipment manufacturers (OEM). It also provides supporting supply chain services, including packaging and transportation throughout the world, as well as design and after-sales. The company operates within several fields including computing, infrastructure (servers, telecommunication devices), consumer and industrial fields, automotive and medical. Headquartered in Singapore, Flextronics is a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering complete design, engineering and manufacturing services to automotive, computing, consumer digital, industrial, infrastructure, medical and mobile OEMs.