Retail mega-giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to add notebook PCs to its product list next year, according to news reports.
Taiwan’s China Economic News Service (CENS) and analyst firm ARS, quoting industry sources, said on Thursday that Wal-Mart is being courted by several Taiwan-based notebook PC makers, including Arima Computer, Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, and Wistron, to provide products for the new line.
Wal-Mart is expected to place one or two test orders in the first quarter of next year, CENS said. Arima will get an order for more than 100,000 units, according to that organization. Arima had built notebook PCs for Hewlett-Packard but that relationship ended early this year, CENS said.
Of the other three vendors, Quanta and Compal are the world’s largest portable PC vendors, while Wistron was spun off from Taiwan-based Acer in mid-2001.
