(P) The semiconductor crisis: An opportunity for the refurbished market
The semiconductor crisis has been limiting the availability of electronic products and is gradually leading to increased prices across industries. The alternative is refurbished products, whose quality is similar to new devices, at a…
The semiconductor crisis has been limiting the availability of electronic products and is gradually leading to increased prices across industries. The alternative is refurbished products, whose quality is similar to new devices, at a competitive price.
Apple estimates that it is losing more than $1 billion a month due to the semiconductor crisis. The global car industry is losing about 400,000 car sales a month for the same reason.
From phone manufacturers to car manufacturers, all industries are impacted, to a greater or lesser extent, by the semiconductor crisis.
No one expected this at the beginning of 2020. At the time, semiconductor manufacturers were anticipating a significant increase in demand due to the 5G technology and its widespread use, especially in the automotive industry.
The demand for electronics has soared
The coronavirus pandemic hit Europe and North America in 2020 and radically changed our lifestyle in a very short time.
Many companies started working remotely and students switched to online classes. Long periods of lockdown meant that almost everyone spent more time at home. As a result, sales of laptops, computers, tablets, TVs, and game consoles skyrocketed.
The official data for the computer market (desktops and laptops), analyzed by Gartner, highlights this trend. After a long period of decline, computer sales increased by 4.2% in the second quarter of 2020 (Q2 2020) compared to the same period in 2019 (pre-pandemic). Sales went up by 3.6% in Q3 2020 and by 10.7% in Q4 2020, and peaked in Q1 2021, marking an increase of 32%, before going down to 4.6% in Q2. At the same time, unofficial estimates for console sales in Q2 2020 showed that these doubled for XBOX One and almost tripled for Nintendo Switch.
The steady demand from the IT industry, along with the sharp rise in the demand from the automotive industry has caused the semiconductor crisis to spread to other industries as well.
Game consoles and video card manufacturers were hit the hardest, especially as cryptocurrency mining has pushed the demand for video cards up. Apple has already reported production delays for the iPhone and the MacBook line.
Ironically, Samsung, the world's second-largest semiconductor maker, has also announced delays in launching a few of their top smartphones for the same reason: at the moment, the demand for semiconductors far exceeds the supply.
The impact on the Romanian market
Compared to the main European economies, car and IT markets in Romania are small, which is why the consequences of the semiconductor crisis are delayed and, so far, somewhat diminished.
