IC design houses Ene Technology and Global Media Technology (GMT) may both see their October sales dampened by the recent shortage of notebook components, especially battery cells, according to sources from the Taiwan IC design industry.

Ene has already seen its October sales drop by 18.7% on month in October, while industry watchers expect GMT may also post a similar sequential decline. Ene commented that the present market outlook remains unclear. Company executives admitted fourth-quarter performance may not be as strong as that seen in the same period of last year.

Sources at Taiwan IC design houses indicated that notebook battery cells are still in short supply, whereas supply for LCD panels and specialized chassis is also tight. They explained the shortages to inventory clearance among notebook OEMs in October.

Notebook OEMs striving to maintain inventory levels at one month, suspended orders for ICs in October and cleared all excess inventory in order to meet their goal.

Some IC design houses who have a relatively heavy sales contribution from notebook customers may have to trim their quarterly sales forecasts, some of which originally estimated a 15-20% growth in demand in the fourth quarter, the sources noted.

However, some other industry players indicated that component supply could begin to ease in November, implying that monthly sales for corresponding IC design houses may still have a chance to rebound. They added in saying that the seasonal upturn for notebooks came earlier than expected this year, as evident in the monthly sales peak in September seen my most design houses.