Contrary to Some Investor Concerns
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com. -- Ed.
Contrary to some investor concerns, the industry is anticipating that solid PC demand will continue into 2H21. Non-face-to-face and non-X86 demand should contribute to this uptrend.
Industry predicting that PC demand uptrend will sustain at least through 3Q21
In contrast to recent fears among some investors that IT demand will slow in 2H21, Acer and Asustek are forecasting that notebook PC shipments will remain robust through 3Q21. Chromebook shipments in particular are likely to be brisk. Shrugging off a 10-year downslide, PC shipments have been spearheading IT device market growth since 2020.
Having jumped 11% y-y to 280mn units in 2020, PC shipments are projected to expand 10% y-y in 2021. We believe that the rise in PC demand is being fueled by higher demand for both working from home and online education amid the Covid-19 crisis. Even in 2021, with the impact of the virus lessening, PC sales are continuing to climb in response to recognition in the business and education fields of the advantages of non-face-to-face work and learning. Accordingly, PC ownership is spreading from 1 PC per household to 1 PC per person.
Non-X86 processor contributing to upsurge in PC demand
Also contributing to PC shipments is demand for non-X86 processors being generated by the popularity of Apple’s M1 processor-equipped MacBook. Of note, the M1 processor was developed by Apple by adopting ARMv8.4 instructions, applying an 8-way instruction decoder design (vs only 4~5-way for X86L). Equipped with 630 re-order buffer entries for out-of-order execution (vs only 250~350 levels for X86), the M1’s specific floating-point computing power is 2~4x that of Intel and AMD processors
The M1 processor-equipped MacBook has been receiving favorable responses from consumers as it delivers high performance at a relatively inexpensive cost. Apple’s PC shipments are forecasted to leap 50% y-y in 2021. Assuming that a planned higher-end version, the M1x, is successfully developed in 2H21, favorable effects should also be seen in the high-performance PC market (including desktop PCs). Related development is also underway on the Windows PC side. Qualcomm has begun shipping ARM processors for PCs, and on Mar 13, it acquired CPU design startup Nubia for US$1.4bn. Microsoft is also developing its own PC processor.