Intel is one of few companies that usually just keep going when other are affected by a change in market conditions. With the global shortage of harddrives after the floods in Thailand the entire industry has been hurt, and Intel is forced to revise its preliminary numbers for Q4.
The harddrive shortage has affected everyone one way or another. Intel had earlier predicted that it would reach 14.7 billion dollar revenue, plus/minus 500 million in Q4. It has now lowered the expectations to 13.7 billion dollar, plus/minus 300 million. Intel are not shy with why, but says the reason is the lack of harddrives.
“Sales of personal computers are expected to be up sequentially in the fourth quarter. However, the worldwide PC supply chain is reducing inventories and microprocessor purchases as a result of hard disk drive supply shortages. The company expects hard disk drive supply shortages to continue into the first quarter, followed by a rebuilding of microprocessor inventories as supplies of hard disk drives recover during the first half of 2012.”
The sales of home computers are expected to be up year-to-year, but the distribution channel has ordered less microprocessors as a direct result of the harddrive shortage. Intel expects this trend will keep until Q1, but that sales of microprocessors are expected to return to normal in the second half of 2012 as the market starts to recover.
Even if Intel counts on the market to start to recover in the first half of 2012, it should take longer before it has completely recovered. We can expet more, similar announcements like this one, from other companies like AMD and NVIDIA that should also feel the effects.
