It looks like PC component shortages are here to stay. According to industry analysts, the whole supply chain has been strained like never before and it may take a while before the whole situation stabilises.
If you are looking to upgrade your PC with shiny new hardware from Nvidia or AMD you probably know that both new GPU series and CPUs have been out of stock for a while now. Yes, some retailers get products from time to time but it's safe to say that RTX 3000, Radeon RX 6000 and Ryzen 5000 series are not widely available at the moment.
And it seems this will be the case for quite some time. According to industry analysts, the demand for PC hardware has seen record-breaking numbers in 2020.
"The whole supply chain has been strained like never before," said Gregg Prendergast, Pan-America president at hardware maker Acer Inc.
Acer, who are mainly in the Laptop business have been absorbing the cost to fly laptops directly to its education customers, ditching boats and trains to cut a month off shipping. However, with assembly lines behind, some customers must wait four months to get shipments.
AMD
Components including screens and processors are hard to get even with many factories long past virus shutdowns, analysts said. They added 2021 sales forecasts would be higher if not for the supply issues.
Another Laptop maker - Dell - have seen online orders from consumers surge 62 per cent in the third quarter compared with last year.
Ishan Dutt, a Canalys analyst, recalled a customer telling a vendor in April that any device with a keyboard would suffice as long as shipments arrived in a week. That urgent need has subsided, but people now want to upgrade, maintaining pressure on the industry, Dutt said.
Additional government stimulus money for schools and businesses in several countries may add to the crunch until 2022, said Ryan Reith, vice president at analyst firm IDC.
You can check out the full report at Reuters for more details.
