Contrary to what experts pointed out1, the chip shortage, which began back in 2020 due to the increase in demand for electronics — caused by the pandemic — will not end this year. The rise has led to global delays in the delivery of equipment from various industry sectors and one of the companies most affected by this chip shortage is HP.
Although we immediately remember brands like Intel and Snapdragon (or in the smartphone, tablet and peripheral brands), HP uses microchips in the manufacture of printers.
In addition, there is the HPE subdivision, to serve companies. Since the problem began, HPE CEO Antonio Neri has been trying to convert customers in the business division into service subscribers3 in an attempt to counteract the loss of revenue. It is worth remembering that the sale of hardware is responsible for a significant portion of HP’s cash.
Due to the chip shortage, HP saw its stock price drop
“Orders increased by double digits in the third fiscal quarter year-over-year and 11% year-to-date compared to the same period last year,” says HPE’s 2021 statement according to Bloomberg3.
Enrique Lopes, CEO of HP, confirmed that the company has a full quarter of backlogs, which makes its stock price plummet. According to the Investing.com4 website, its BDRs on the Bovespa fell as much as 2.5%.
Other numbers, this time from the notebook sector, show that with this crisis caused by the chip shortage, HP lost 11.3% of its sales5. This is fully aligned with the impact on HPE — since most of the equipment sold is business notebooks.
Even with chip shortages, HP ranked 2nd in PC sales in 2021
High demand caused PC sales to grow 14.6% in 2021, in what was recorded as the best result since 2012 according to a survey by Canalys6. The 5 brands that sold the most were:
- Lenovo (24.1% market share)
- HP (21.7%)
- Dell (17.4%)
- Apple (8.5%)
- Acer (7.1%)
The total number of units sold was 341,053, against 237,614 in 2020.
Expectation of improvement with new manufacturing technique
Como dissemos neste artigo, “apenas uma empresa, a TSMC, fabrica 84% dos semicondutores do mundo”. O cenário é este devido à complexidade da confecção dos semicondutores.
However, researchers in Singapore seem to have found a new technique for manufacturing, based on nanotransfer printing. It is “a process that uses a mold to print metal on a certain substrate, in this case silicon wafer, through pressure”, according to an article in Olhar Digital7.
It turns out that the method is still in the testing phase, which does not tend to be very fast. However, we can see it as a way to get around this chip shortage, whose crisis is not expected to abate.
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