Despite a semiconductor shortage, global PC shipments in the first quarter of this year increased 32 percent from a year earlier, preliminary data from research firm Gartner Inc showed.
Shipments in the January-to-March period totaled 69.87 million units from 52.93 million units a year earlier, Gartner said in a report on Monday last week.
The quarterly increase in shipments marked the fastest annual growth since it began tracking the PC market in 2000, Gartner said.
Photo courtesy of Acer Inc
“This growth should be viewed in the context of two unique factors: comparisons against a pandemic-constrained market and the current global semiconductor shortage,” Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa said in a news release.
“Without the shipment chaos of early 2020, this quarter’s growth might have been lower. However, semiconductor shortages are now adversely affecting the supply chain once again, with shipment lead times for some PCs extending out as far as four months,” Kitagawa said.
PC demand is to remain strong, even after stay-at-home restrictions ease as countries gain control over COVID-19 outbreaks, but vendors and suppliers should avoid creating excess inventory, Gartner said.
In particular, growing PC demand in the educational segment — after the COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to turn to distance learning — has prompted many vendors to build up their Chromebook inventory, it said.
Chromebook shipments in the first quarter more than tripled from a year earlier, Gartner said, adding that the growth was primarily driven by educational institutions in North America.
An analysis released on April 9 by International Data Corp (IDC) showed that global PC shipments in the first quarter increased 55.2 percent to 83.98 million units year-on-year.
While seasonal factors, component shortages and logistical issues caused the figure to fall 8 percent from the fourth quarter of last year, the sequential decline was the smallest since the first quarter of 2012, when PC shipments declined 7.5 percent sequentially, IDC said in a statement.
The rival researchers use different calculations to measure the market — Gartner defines PCs as desktops, notebooks and ultramobile premium devices, while IDC categorizes them as desktops, notebooks and workstations.
“Unfulfilled demand from the past year has carried forward into the first quarter and additional demand brought on by the pandemic has also continued to drive volume,” IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said in the statement.
Other factors — such as growth in gaming, the need for higher-performance notebooks in the enterprise market and an increase in demand for touchscreens within the education segment — helped to drive PC demand in the first quarter, the research firm said.
However, the ongoing semiconductor shortage is delaying vendors’ ability to restock inventory and fill customer orders, IDC mobile device trackers program vice president Ryan Reith said in the statement.
“All three segments — business, education and consumer — are experiencing demand that we didn’t expect to happen, regardless of many countries beginning their ‘opening up’ process,” Reith said.
“Component shortages will likely be a topic of conversation for the majority of 2021, but the more important question should be what PC demand will look like in two to three years,” Reith added.
In both the Gartner and IDC reports, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) was the No. 1 vendor in the first quarter, followed by HP Inc and Dell Technologies Inc, with Apple Inc and Acer Inc (宏碁) rounding out the top five.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
RSS