Taipei  - Taiwan's Inventec plans to build a fourth notebook computer manufacturing plant to meet an expected increase in global demand, a newspaper said on Sunday.

Inventec, which is the main contract notebook computer maker for Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard, had a slack season in the first quarter, the Commercial Times reported.

However, Inventec expects its output to rise by 10 to 15 per cent in the second quarter as Toshiba's laptop battery production returns to normal and Acer, which became the world's No 3 notebook brand in 2007, is expected to place more orders with Inventec, the daily said.

Currently Inventec's facilities can manufacture 20 million notebook computer each year, the paper said. But if there is a 20 per cent increase in world demand for notebook computers, Inventec will build its fourth notebook computer plant in late 2008 or early 2009, to expand its annual output to 30 million notebook computers.

Inventec was founded in 1975 to make electric calculators. But over the years it has developed into a manufacturer of high-tech electronic products like notebook computers, servers and wireless products.

Inventec produced about 10 million notebook computers and 20 million servers in 2007. It is the world's top original design manufacturing (ODM) server maker and one of the top five notebook computer makers. (dpa)