ASE, Global Unichip, UMC and others posted lackluster sales figures for August. Taiwan PC assemblers Compal, Wistron and others reported mixed results in the channels.

In one indicator, Taiwan foundry provider United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) reported net sales of NT$8.165 billion ($256 million) for the month of August, down 21.74 percent from a year ago and down 4.35 percent from July of 2008.

Taiwan chip-packaging giant Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) reported net revenues of NT$8.781 billion ($275.4 million) for August, up only 0.8 percent from July of 2008 but down 6.5 percent from a year ago.

Not all was doom-and-gloom in Taiwan. ASIC provider Global Unichip Corp. said its August revenues were up 7 pecent from July 2008 and up 37 percent over last year.

On the PC front, the signs are mixed among Taiwan's ODM giants, such as Quanta Computer. Quanta makes notebook PCs on an OEM basis for many PC makers.

''Sluggish corporate notebook PC markets in both North American and Europe negatively impacted Compal's shipments, offset by growing consumer notebook in Eastern European and emerging markets,'' said Daniel Amir, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, in a report.

''Despite weaker-than-expected European markets, Quanta maintains its full year 40 million notebook shipments guidance (26 percent increase over 2007), as the demand from emerging markets remains solid,'' Amir said.

''August shipments were flat or slightly up versus July. We forecast 10 percent growth month/month in September, following a 3 percent increase in August and 20 percent quarter/quarter growth both in 3Q and 4Q,'' he added.

Another Taiwan PC assembler, Wistron, ''raised its 3Q shipments estimate to 5.8 million from 5.4 million, 25 percent quarter/quarter,'' he said. ''Wistron is tracking ahead of the industry average, as it is gaining market share from other notebook ODMs.''