The short supply of Intel Corp’s central processing unit (CPU) chipsets for portable computers could trim shipments of Taiwanese branded notebook vendors this year, an industry watcher said yesterday.

“There is a shortage of Intel’s mobile CPU chipsets for notebooks, with a gap of over 20 percent in meeting market demand,” Simon Yang, a senior researcher at the Topology Research Institute, said in a phone interview yesterday.

Yang said the CPU shortage has resulted from robust sales of laptops in the fourth quarter, which exceeded Intel’s original expectations. Intel’s products power over 90 percent of laptops worldwide.

In the third quarter, Intel reportedly cut prices of its processors used in desktop computers by as much as 35 percent to help reduce inventory and stimulate buying before students returned to school in September.