Dog days of summer for the PC industry continues
The world’s Number two PC maker Dell recently announced that it sees the PC market hitting the lowest point this year but not predicting a time frame for the PC market to turnaround. Bloomberg sees that the PC market will drop by 9.7 percent in 2013. The downhill slide of the personal computer (PC) market is still continuing and it is dragging related industries with it. Intel, the world’s largest chip manufacturer cuts its revenue forecast for the year from chip sales in July 2013. Intel expects to end the fiscal year flat.
The impact is spreading to other parts of the technology sectors too. Smartphone and tablet sales are seen their robust sales slowing down. Intel and Samsung Electronics see their smartphone phone sales flat lining and as a result expect to spend 11 percent less this year. This will extend impacts to the other chip manufacturers like Atmel (make sensor chips for Samsung’s Galaxy S4) and TSM too. Taiwan semiconductors continuing with its spending plans but warned that its’ spending next year may be cut. Cuts by chip manufacturers are hurting the business of chip-making equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials and Lam Research.