(Yicai Global) March 21 -- Original equipment manufacturers in Taiwan are calling on laptop brands to help them to bear the burden of rising raw material prices by hiking product prices.

Contract manufacturers are in talks with brand clients on raising prices so that they cover half of the rise in materials costs, tech website Digitimes reported Chen Ruicong, president of OEM Compal Electronic Inc. as saying.

Taiwan's OEMs make up a significant proportion of suppliers for major laptop makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Apple Inc. in the global market. Any factory price increases agreed would be reflected in second quarter financial results when laptops are sold on the market, Chen said.

The overall personal computer market, including desktops and laptops, has declined in recent years, becoming a recognized sunset market. However, laptops still sell well compared with desktop computers. For this year, Chen expects sales of laptops to increase or decrease by around 2 percent, driven by sales of office notebooks.

Other key notebook OEMs in Taiwan include Quanta Computer Inc. and Pegatron Corp.