Acer is optimistic about its laptop supply this year, chip shortages to gradually ease by the end of 2021

While the situation with the tight GPU and console supplies is not looking good at least throughout mid-2022, as predicted by Foxconn, things are already starting to improve for the laptop market. In a recent interview with Reuters, Acer’s president for Pan-Asia Pacific Operations Andrew Hou shared his optimistic view regarding the semiconductor shortages specifically affecting the laptop supply.

Hou noted that the laptop market was among the last to be affected by the global shortages towards the end of 2020, and the supply chains immediately “jumped into action” to address the situation. However, as we have already seen, the situation could not really be contained for the first quarter of 2021, yet Hou is now expecting considerably better supplies for the second quarter and a nearly complete recovery by the end of the year. Last week, we were reporting that the shortages could force Acer to increase prices for some laptop models. We are not really sure how this would turn out now that Acer expects supply improvements across the board.

Laptop sales will continue to boom in the SEA region (excluding China) and most likely across the world, as countries continue to impose strict measures to reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing an increased use of mobile devices to ensure studying and work from home conditions. Hou points out that the supply problems are actually affected by the lack of basic components: “What is lacking is not the high end chips - it’s the ones people have for a long time not cared about.”

Part of the supply problem is additionally affected by scalpers who are able to buy large product stocks and resell them online for drastically increased prices. Additionally, if the laptops are equipped with quite powerful dGPUs like Nvidia’s latest mobile RTX 3000 series, crypto miners may also be responsible for dwindling supplies. It would be nice if OEMs can present efficient measures against problems like these, as well.

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