As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic subside, the global personal computer (PC) party is over and demand has slowed significantly. In this case, the prospects of the two major CPU giants Intel (Intel) and AMD were questioned, so Wall Street analysts lowered their target prices.
Barron’s reported that Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis recently issued a research report warning that Taiwanese foundry manufacturers’ notebook output in the second quarter (April-June) was not as good as expected. The half-year outlook could be “softer”. He cited PC foundries’ forecasts that PC production should be flat in 2022, but double-digit declines are also possible.
Curtis is now judging that global notebook power production will decline by 17% in 2022, a drop that is higher than the forecast 12%. Intel, the world’s largest CPU maker, issued an alert on semiconductor demand in June, saying the impact of the slump in demand would spread from the semiconductor industry to other industries.
Curtis maintained Intel’s “underweight” rating, with the target price cut from $45 to $40; AMD maintained its “Equal Weight” rating with a new target price of $85, down from the previous $115.
Market research firm IDC announced on July 11 that global PC shipments in the second quarter of 2022 fell by 15.3% year-on-year to 71.3 million units. ) shipments decreased by 22.5% year-on-year, Lenovo (Lenovo) fell 12.1%, Dell (Dell) fell slightly by 5.3%, because the main business market, compared to consumer PCs, the demand for commercial models is relatively strong.
Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC, pointed out that consumer fears of a recession have intensified, and demand has slowed across all sectors.
Consumer demand for PCs has weakened recently, and the long-term demand outlook may be worse as consumer spending turns conservative and return to the more convenient phones and tablets. In contrast, demand for commercial PCs remained solid, but was still affected by slower corporate purchases.
