Let’s be honest, the economy is not what is said to be buoyant and although we are passionate about hardware, the reality is that they do not meet the basic needs described in Maslow’s pyramid. When these processes occur, it is normal for the demand for products that are not essential to drop. Well then, it seems that AMD and NVIDIA are going to reduce their stock of products for it. What are the consequences that we are going to face in this 2023?
One of the biggest problems facing hardware manufacturers is timing. In an ideal world, products are ready when planned and their life cycles work within established times. However, this is not always the case and the problem is aggravated if we take into account that the launch and promotion periods for each of them are set in time and are limited. The biggest fear in a market where today’s product is better than yesterday’s, but worse than tomorrow’s? Holding on to inventory that cannot be sold at its proper price.
The entire sector will reduce stock during this 2023
It is marked by value and, therefore, the price of a market as competitive as that of hardware is performance, which means that the sale of the different models of processors, graphics cards and other components has to be done as quickly as possible, within, of course, reasonable time frames. However, the situation in which the sector finds itself at the moment is not due to execution and time problems. If not because of the macroeconomic situation.
And the one that will notice this change is undoubtedly the largest chip foundry in the world, the Asian TSMC that will see as its main customers They are going to cut the number of chips that they are going to manufacture in it. If we take into account that the economy of these factories depends on their being 100% operational in order to have a certain level of profitability, then this implies an increase in the price of chip manufacturing.
And how bad is the news?
Well, according to a report by DigiTimes, each and every one of the Taiwanese chip maker’s production lines are below 100% capacity. For example, that of the chips under manufacturing nodes N6 and N7 will only be at half their production capacity. What’s more, chips that use older nodes like the 28 nm one will not reach the maximum capacity either.
TSMC usually marks an average price per wafer, but this is variable according to the contractual agreements with each of its partners. It is expected that the volume of contracted wafers will drop by 15% during the first quarter of this year that we have just inaugurated. This will mean that there will be a reduction in the stock of many products that will be released in the coming months compared to what was initially planned.
Does it change anything for us end users? No, since many have not been presented with an official price yet. But it is an indication of how things are in the market and that the average price of hardware is going to rise from one year to the next, since the fact of reducing the stock means an increase for the user’s pocket, although we do not know still to what degree.
