The global PC market is forecast to grow significantly this year from last year, but at a slower pace than previously expected due to continued supply chain and logistics challenges, research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said last week.
Worldwide PC shipments are forecast to increase 14.2 percent on an annual basis to 347 million units this year, due to demand from the business and education sectors, IDC’s latest estimate showed on Tuesday last week.
IDC, which categorizes PCs as desktops, notebooks and workstations, said the new estimate was lower than its May forecast of an annual growth of 18 percent, due to component shortages and logistics issues, as well as declining demand for devices for working from home as more people return to the office amid rising COVID-19 vaccination rates.
Photo courtesy of Acer Inc
The tablet market is also expected to grow this year, but at a much slower pace of 3.4 percent, the Massachusetts-based research firm said in a report.
The forecast was echoed by PC vendors HP Inc and Dell Technologies Inc, as both on Thursday said that supply constraints continued to hold back shipments, while chipmaker Intel Corp last month said that a semiconductor shortage would likely persist throughout the year.
IDC mobile device tracker program vice president Ryan Reith said in a statement that “the PC and tablet markets are supply constrained and that demand is still there.”
The supply constraints are mainly related to panels and ICs, IDC said.
“The lengthening of the supply shortages combined with ongoing logistical issues are presenting the industry with some big challenges,” Reith said. “However, we believe the vast majority of PC demand is nonperishable, especially from the business and education sectors.”
Worldwide, 280 million units were shipped last year, up 11 percent from the previous year, driven by telecommuting and online education demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IDC said.
From this year to 2025, PC shipments are expected to increase by a compound annual growth rate of 3.2 percent, led by laptop sales, while tablet shipments are predicted to decline by a compound annual growth rate of 1.5 percent over the same period, IDC said.
Although a level of normalcy in people’s daily lives would return after the pandemic is brought under control, and demand for videoconferencing would wane in advanced countries such as the US and European nations, demand for commercial laptops and desktops is expected to grow, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a research note on Aug. 18.
PC shipments are expected to slow from the second half of this year to the first half of next year as work-from-home demand subsides, Yuanta said.
Demand would accelerate again in the second half of next year due to the end of inventory destocking and Nvidia Corp’s biennial upgrades to its graphics processing units (GPUs), it said.
“We forecast notebook shipments to grow 13.1 percent year-on-year to 227 million units in 2021,” Yuanta said. “We estimate notebook shipments will be flat in 2022, as rising demand for commercial products and shipment growth for gaming products boosted by Nvidia’s biennial GPU overhaul should offset weakening work-from-home demand.”
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS