Forecasting analysis of the notebook shipments from Taiwan firms

The proportion of the world's notebooks manufactured by Taiwan firms increased from 65% in 2003 to 70% in 2004. It is interested in forecasting the trend of the notebook shipment by Taiwan firms. The Bass diffusion model has been successfully applied to describe the empirical adoption curve for many new products and technological innovations. In order to improve the parameter estimates, a hybrid approach, which is combined the nonlinear least square and genetic algorithm, is proposed. This approach can produce more accuracy of the parameter estimation for the Bass diffusion model. In addition, the price index plays an important role in the notebook industry. Thus, the diffusion model should include this variable. The notebook shipments from Taiwan firms during 1994-2003 are used to demonstrate the application of the proposed method. The results show that the diffusion model with price index using a hybrid approach outperforms the Base diffusion model in terms of forecasting accuracy.