Taiwan's Asustek Computer expects a sharp rise in shipments of its motherboards and laptop computers this year due to robust demand, a senior company official said Wednesday. Motherboards are the heart of the personal computer. They include system memory and central processing units, or CPUs -- the microprocessor chips that comprise the silicon brain of all computers.

Asustek, which has factories in Taiwan, China, Mexico and the Czech Republic, makes notebook computers for several multinational companies, including Apple Computer Inc. and Sony Corp.

This year, Asustek sees its shipments of motherboards rise to 52 million, up from 42 million last year, said global marketing director Sunny Han.

The company expects to ship 5 million motherboards this month, exceeding its monthly production capacity of 4 million units. "We have to outsource the excess orders," Han said.

Shipments of laptop computers are also rising, likely to reach 4 million units for 2005 from the 2.8 million units last year, Han said.

Strong demand for personal computers will likely boost Asustek's consolidated revenue to US$12 billion (euro9.86 billion) this year from US$7.75 billion in 2004, Han said.

The company's notebook computer production capacity is 500,000 units a month, Han said. Asustek's own brand of notebook computers account for about 45 to 47 percent of total shipments, up from less than 40 percent last year, and the contract orders make up the rest. Asustek is the world's fifth-largest notebook computer maker by shipments, behind four other Taiwanese companies, Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., Wistron Corp. and Inventec Electronics Corp.