report cites weather hazards in the United States, to go with labor shortages in China, where most of these units are manufactured. Harsh weather conditions and severe cold has affected business in states like Illinois, Indiana and Montana in the US — and this has resulted in notebook retailers having a hard time selling their inventories. And this is, actually, with the Windows XP retirement looming in plain sight. The abovementioned report cites Quanta Computer, a large vendor that claimed that it managed to ship around 12.1 million notebooks in Q4 2013 with Apple and HP were its two biggest clients. But even with figures like these, the company now expects shipments to drop, at least for the first few months of the year, something to the tune of 10 to 20 percent. Though times for notebook makers — tougher still foreseen.]]>
