Lenovo Outsourcing Notebook Production?

By Geoff Duncan January 21, 2008

Lenovo Outsourcing Notebook Production?

In an unusual move, China-based Lenovo—which took over IBM’s ThinkPad line a few years ago—has apparently announced it will be outsourcing production of all its notebooks to trusted manufacturers, rather than producing the systems itself in China. The unusual twist: those trusted notebook manufacturers are in Taiwan.

Traditional wisdom holds that the cheaper Chinese labor market would make it more cost-efficient for Lenovo to keep its manufacturing in mainland China. However, according to Taiwanese media, Lenovo feels that shifting manufacturing to Taiwan will save on inventory costs and shorten delivery times to market, as well as save on labor costs.

Lenovo currently works with Taiwan’s Compal Electronics, Inventec Corp., Quanta Computer (which also manufacturers to a myriad of computer makers, including Apple and Dell, and also builds the OLPC XO notebook), and Wistron Corp. However, Lenovo apparently intends to eliminate one of these suppliers to achieve better economy of scale.

Earlier this month, Lenovo announced its IdeaPad line, its first line of notebook computers aimed at consumers

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