Huge drop in PC shipments expected in Q1 of 2012

According to the market analysis firm IHS iSuppli, the number of PC shipments in the first quarter of 2012 is expected to drop by 3.8 million due to the flooding in Thailand over the last few months.

The last report issued by IHS predicted 88 million shipments of PCs around the world in the first quarter, this number has since then been reduced to 84.2 million. The overall shipments predictions for 2012 is not doing any better, the number dropped from 399 million to 376 million. All of this will result in a drop of the PC market’s global growth from 9.5% to 6.8% next year.

The main reason for this being the hard disk drives shortage caused by the Thailand flood. Without storage, it’s impossible for computer manufacturing companies to ship pre-built systems to consumers and businesses. Not only did this affect manufacturing companies, but as we’ve all seen, prices for HDDs alone have doubled in most places.

“The PC supply chain says it has sufficient HDD inventory for the fourth quarter of 2011. However, those stockpiles will run out in the first quarter of 2012, impacting PC production during that period,” said Matthew Wilkins, senior principal analyst of compute platforms at IHS.

Hope is still in the air as Western Digital announced their effort in the recovery of the production lines, although it will take quite some time before the production comes back to normal.

IHS expects the whole HDD market to come back to normal by the end of 2012, with productions that could even surpass normal capacities, ironically leading to inventory surplus.

Source