YoY. This figure is also 6.7% lower than TrendForce’s pre-pandemic forecast. With the possibility of the pandemic escalating in North America and emerging Asian regions, TrendForce may decrease the TV shipment forecast even further in the future.

2. Notebook Computers

Due to the pandemic, the top six notebook OEMs, most of which are based in China, suffered damages to their production capacity in February. Hence, TrendForce has decreased its projected 1Q20 notebook shipment from the pre-pandemic level of 35 million units to 27.9 million units, down by 20.3%. After China saw a stabilization in the spread of the pandemic, OEMs aggressively pursued labor and materials, while ramping up their capacity utilization rate to 70% within one month. Meanwhile, upstream material manufacturers are expected to return to normal supply levels beforehalted operations due to a lack of materials. More recently, the pandemic has rapidly spread throughout Europe and North America after work resumption gradually took place in China. The rapid spread of the pandemic has brought about a corresponding spread of material shortages – along with plant shutdowns and similar large-scale impacts – for automobile suppliers globally.

As Italy and Spain went into lockdown, other European countries and the U.S. have begun to follow suit, with many auto manufacturers closing factory operations in Europe and North America starting from March 16. Most of these shutdowns are one to two weeks long, during which manufacturers will decide on future developments.

Owing to the pandemic’s impact and the recent stock market crash triggered by the Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war, characteristics peculiar