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An additional factor in meeting demand is a national holiday in China, which this year will see many factories closed between 1-7 October. However, Taiwan notebook makers are paying workers triple-time wages to continue working, the sources said.

According to China's labour regulations, workers are eligible for double pay when working on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays.

Some makers said they have had to ask employees to work overtime because fourth quarter orders have increased 10-20 per cent sequentially.

A number of uncertainties, including the delay of Intel's new chips for notebooks, inventory issues, LCD-panel prices, escalating oil prices and rising interest rates had dampened demand for notebooks in the third quarter, the sources stated.

However, demand started to surge recently amid declining LCD-panel prices, planned October price cuts for Intel Pentium M CPUs and an increasing supply of Advanced Micro Devices 64-bit CPUs, the sources stated.