According to Taiwanese United Daily News, Acer and ASUS are expecting the downturn in PC sales to turn around in the second half of the year. That said, Acer reported its worst results in years for the first quarter this year and ASUS is expected to follow suit, when its first quarter earnings numbers are released on Friday this week. The slow sales for both companies are expected to continue for the first half of 2023, but according to the report, there should be an improvement in the second half of the year.

That said, both companies are betting on improved sales of not just PCs to improve their books, as Acer is hoping to sell more displays, while ASUS is focusing on its component business. ASUS has already seen a small improvement in component sales, which the company is hoping is the first signs of a stabilising components market, with more of its potential customers upgrading their systems. That said, with certain components like graphics cards still being priced at levels that many consumers aren't willing to pay for the performance on offer, it might be a slower recovery than these companies are expecting.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $119.5 billion during the first quarter of 2023, a decrease of 8.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and 21.3% less than the first quarter of 2022. Sales for the month of March 2023 increased 0.3% compared to February 2023. Monthly sales are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. SIA represents 99% of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. chip firms.

"Semiconductor sales continued to slip during the first quarter of 2023 due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic headwinds, but month-to-month sales were up in March for the first time in nearly a year, providing optimism for a rebound in the months ahead," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. Regionally, month-to-month sales increased in Europe (2.7%), Asia Pacific/All Other (2.6%), and China (1.2%), but decreased in Japan (-1.1%) and the Americas (-3.5%). Year-to-year sales decreased across all regions: Europe (-0.7%), Japan (-1.3%), the Americas (-16.4%), Asia Pacific/All Other (-22.2%), and China (-34.1%).

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, an industry analyst known for making accurate predictions about Apple, we have some new information regarding Intel's Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors. As Kuo notes, Intel's major Cloud Service Provider (CSP) client, Microsoft, has notified the supply chain that the company is cutting orders of Sapphire Rapids Xeons by 50-70% in the second half of 2023. Interestingly, Intel's supply chain has notified the company to cut chip orders by around 50% amidst weak server demand. This comes straight after Intel's plans to start shipping Sapphire Rapids processors in the second quarter of 2023 and deliver the highly anticipated lineup to customers.

Additionally, Kuo has stated that Intel isn't only competing for clients with AMD but also with Arm-based CPUs. Microsoft also plans to start buying Arm-based server processors made by Ampere Computing in the first half of 2024. This will reduce Microsoft's dependence on x86 architecture and induce higher competition in the market, especially if other CSPs follow.

Video game industry expert Jeff Grubb made some interesting remarks during a live recording of his Game Mess Decides podcast - yesterday's episode included plenty of talk about the Xbox and PC platform exclusive Hi-Fi Rush, a rhythm-based action game. The Tango Gameworks developed title was first announced on January 25 of this year, and in an unusual move for Xbox (plus Bethesda Softworks) the colorfully cel-shaded action adventure experience was released worldwide that same day. According to Grubb this obtuse bit of marketing strategy has not paid off well, in pure unit sales figures, from the parent company's perspective: "(Hi-Fi Rush) didn't make the money it needed to make." Bethesda has stated that the game had achieved a maximum player base number in the 2 million range (by March 1) - this likely includes a significant chunk of customers accessing Hi-Fi Rush through the Game Pass subscription service. Exact sales figures for Japanese studio-developed title in terms of digital sales have not been divulged.

Grubb continued his stream of inside knowledge: "Based on what I've heard, it just straight up didn't make the money it needed to make. It got good reviews, and the buzz was good, so where do you put the blame for something like that?" Several online publications and games industry tipsters on social media have since pounced to spread Grubb's words - so much so that it was enough to grab the attention of one Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox Games marketing. In a response to criticisms aimed at the gaming divisions poor marketing effort he stated: "Hi-Fi Rush was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn't be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." Greenberg was thanked for providing a response, yet hindsight is 20/20 - could a traditional physical release of the game have helped boost paying customer uptake? The sensitive matter of a wider console release is another interesting topic of conversation - Tango Gameworks has multi-platform development experience and Hi-Fi Rush would appear to be a very suitable game for a PlayStation-oriented audience. Microsoft has received criticism for making (over time) its Bethesda game lineup exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem (Game Pass and Windows included).

US authorities have imposed a $300 million penalty on Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a market leader in data storage solutions, for an alleged violation of export controls. The US Commerce Department has investigated the California-based company's business dealings with Chinese hardware firm Huawei Technologies Co. Limited, specifically for the sale of hard disk drives to operations within mainland China. It has found that Seagate has broken the "foreign direct product (FDP) rule" that was established by the US Government back in 2020. Seagate is said to have sold approximately 7.4 million hard drive units to Huawei after the period in which the new rulings took effect - the total value of these shipments was estimated in the region of $1.1 billion.

The US government's serving of a civil penalty to Seagate appears to be part of a larger drive to prevent North American tech companies from selling advanced computer equipment to Chinese firms. Two other suppliers (not named) of storage solutions had agreed to the government imposed terms and ceased trade with Huawei in 2020. In contrast, Seagate has seemingly become a record breaking heretic according to a statement released yesterday by the Bureau of Industry (BIS) and Security: "This historic foreign direct product enforcement case and settlement represents the largest standalone administrative penalty in BIS history. Today's resolution also includes a multi-year audit requirement and a five-year suspended Denial Order. In August 2020, the Bureau of Industry and Security imposed controls over certain foreign-produced items related to Huawei. Despite this, in September 2020, Seagate announced it would continue to do business with Huawei. Seagate did so despite the fact that its only two competitors had stopped selling HDDs to Huawei, resulting in Seagate becoming Huawei's sole source provider of HDDs."

Analyst firm Yole Group has predicted that SSD sales revenues will grow to $67 billion in the year 2028, generated by 472 million unit sales - indicating a very healthy outlook in the long term. However, their predictions for market performance in 2023 appear to be less cheerful for manufacturers of NAND flash memory. The SSD market dynamic was positive in 2021 and the starting months of 2022, but demand has dropped sharply since then due to a number of factors including global inflation, geopolitical tensions, and inventory digestion at electronics manufacturers. Sales revenues in 2022 totaled $29 billion (352 million units), down from $34 billion (400 million units) in 2021 - demonstrating a 14% year-to-year decline.

The continued weakening of global demand in 2023 will have an effect on SSD sales revenues, and the Yole Group has foreseen troublesome outcomes for manufacturers. The average selling price of NAND memory and solid-state drive units has been on the decline in the recent quarters, caused by sluggish demand and a surplus of stock. Despite the grim outlook in the short term, the research body is predicting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 15% between 2022 and 2028 for the overall size of the SSD market.

CD Projekt has revealed that 2022 was its second-best year in terms of financial results - it cites an uptick in sales of action role-playing shooter Cyberpunk 2077 as the main reason behind the nice boost to its earnings - around $222 million in revenue, leading to about $80 million in net profit. The Cyberpunk intellectual property has expanded beyond the scope of the video games format and onto the small screen - evidently a combination of the Netflix anime series adaptation and continued efforts into polishing and expanding the game has spread a positive word of mouth. The company states: "In 2022 CD PROJEKT RED carried out intensive work on Cyberpunk 2077, which resulted in successive updates and the next-gen console edition of the game. An important event was the well-received Netflix premiere of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It attracted many new players to the game, and convinced many others to revisit Night City."

Adam Kiciński, CEO of CD PROJEKT was buoyed by these results and set expectations for continuations in both fields in the future: "The popularity of the series and the positive reception of the update, released a week before the premiere, had a notable effect on Cyberpunk sales and general sentiment around the game, as evidenced by gamers' reviews. This is a clear sign that deeper involvement in our franchises and expanding their reach is the right way to go. Another important event supporting the Cyberpunk franchise will be the release of Phantom Liberty - a large expansion scheduled for this year."

While AMD Radeon PC discrete GPUs have a lot of catching up to do against NVIDIA GeForce products in terms of market-share, the two companies' quarterly revenue figures paint a very different picture. For Q4 2022, AMD pushed $1.644 billion in GPU products encompassing all its markets, namely the semicustom chips powering Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles; and AMD Radeon products. In the same period, NVIDIA raked in $1.831 billion in revenues from semicustom chips powering Nintendo Switch console, GeForce NOW cloud-gaming service, and NVIDIA GeForce products. In purely revenue terms, AMD is bringing in 89% the revenue of NVIDIA from client graphics IP, which begins to explain how AMD is a major player in this market.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced global semiconductor industry sales totaled $573.5 billion in 2022, the highest-ever annual total and an increase of 3.2% compared to the 2021 total of $555.9 billion. Sales slowed during the second half of the year, however. Fourth-quarter sales of $130.2 billion were 14.7% less than the total from the fourth quarter of 2021 and 7.7% lower than the total from third quarter of 2022. And global sales for the month of December 2022 were $43.4 billion, a decrease of 4.4% compared to November 2022 total. Monthly sales are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. SIA represents 99% of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. chip firms.

"The global semiconductor market experienced significant ups and downs in 2022, with record-high sales early in the year followed by a cyclical downturn taking hold later in the year," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Despite short-term fluctuations in sales due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic conditions, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor market remains incredibly strong, due to the ever-increasing role of chips in making the world smarter, more efficient, and better connected."

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2022. The Company posted KRW 70.46 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 4.31 trillion in operating profit in the quarter ended December 31, 2022. For the full year, it reported 302.23 trillion in annual revenue, a record high and KRW 43.38 trillion in operating profit.

The business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown. Earnings at the Memory Business decreased sharply as prices fell and customers continued to adjust inventory. The System LSI Business also saw a decline in earnings as sales of key products were weighed down by inventory adjustments in the industry. The Foundry Business posted a new record for quarterly revenue while profit increased year-on-year on the back of advanced node capacity expansion as well as customer base and application area diversification.

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2022 fourth-quarter and full-year results. "Our fourth-quarter net sales came in around the midpoint of our guidance at €6.4 billion. The gross margin of 51.5% was above our guidance due to additional upgrades and insurance settlement for last year's ASML Berlin fire. "For ASML, 2022 was another strong year ending with total net sales for the year of €21.2 billion, gross margin of 50.5% and a record backlog at the end of 2022 of €40.4 billion.

"We continue to see uncertainty in the market caused by inflation, rising interest rates, risk of recession and geopolitical developments related to export controls. However, our customers indicate that they expect the market to rebound in the second half of the year. Considering our order lead times and the strategic nature of lithography investments, demand for our systems therefore remains strong.

Global sales of total semiconductor manufacturing equipment by original equipment manufacturers are forecast to reach a new high of $108.5 billion in 2022, rising 5.9% from the previous industry record of $102.5 billion in 2021, SEMI announced today in its Year-End Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast - OEM Perspective at SEMICON Japan 2022. The record high caps three consecutive years of record revenue. The global total semiconductor manufacturing equipment market is expected to contract to $91.2 billion next year before rebounding in 2024 driven by both the front-end and back-end segments.

"Record fab constructions have driven total semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales to cross the $100 billion mark for a second straight year," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. "Emerging applications in multiple markets have set expectations for significant semiconductor industry growth this decade, which will necessitate further investments to expand production capacity."

According to the latest TrendForce statistics, revenue of the top ten global IC design houses reached US$39.56 billion in 2Q22, growing 32% YoY. Growth was primarily driven by demand for data centers, networking, IoT, and high-end product portfolios. AMD achieved synergy through mergers and acquisitions. In addition to climbing to third place, the company also posted the highest annual revenue growth rate in 2Q22 at 70%.

Qualcomm continues in the No. 1 position worldwide, exhibiting growth in the mobile phone, RF front-end, automotive, and IoT sectors. Sales of mid/low-end mobile phone APs were weak but demand for high-end mobile phone APs was relatively stable. Company revenue reached US$9.38 billion, or 45% growth YoY. NVIDIA benefitted from expanded application of GPUs in data centers to expand this product category's revenue share past the 50% mark to 53.5%, making up for the 13% YoY slump in its game application business, bringing total revenue to US$7.09 billion, though annual growth rate slowed to 21%. AMD reorganized its business after the addition of Xilinx and Pensando. The company's embedded division revenue increased by 2,228% YoY. In addition, its data center department also made a considerable contribution. AMD posted revenue of US$6.55 billion, achieving 70% growth YoY, highest amongst the top ten. Broadcom's sales performance in semiconductor solutions remained solid and demand for cloud services, data centers, and networking is quite strong. The company's purchase order backlog is still increasing with 2Q22 revenue reaching US$6.49 billion, an annual growth rate of 31%.

According to TrendForce investigations into the DRAM market, under pressure from ever-increasing output, Korean manufacturers have significantly increased their willingness to compromise on pricing in order to stimulate buying from distributors and customers, leading to a steady expansion of falling prices. In addition to Korean manufacturers enthusiastically slashing prices, low-priced chips from the spot market are also circulating in the market. Other suppliers have no choice but to follow suit and fervently reduce pricing for sales, rapidly exacerbating the 3Q consumer DRAM price drop from the original estimate of 8~13% to a quarterly decline of 13-18%.

Looking forward to Q4, it will be difficult for stocking momentum to recover before terminal inventories have been completely depleted. TrendForce expects the price of consumer DRAM to continue to fall until oversupply in the market is alleviated. Thus, consumer DRAM pricing will carry on moving lower by another 3~8% in Q4 and the possibility of sustained decline cannot be ruled out.

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2022 second-quarter results. Q2 net sales of €5.4 billion, gross margin of 49.1%, net income of €1.4 billion. Record quarterly net bookings in Q2 of €8.5 billion. ASML expects Q3 2022 net sales between €5.1 billion and €5.4 billion and a gross margin between 49% and 50%. Expected sales growth for the full year of around 10%.

The value of fast shipments*in 2022 leading to delayed revenue recognition into 2023 is expected to increase from around €1 billion to around €2.8 billion.
"Our second-quarter net sales came in at €5.4 billion with a gross margin of 49.1%. Demand from our customers remains very strong, as reflected by record net bookings in the second quarter of €8.5 billion, including €5.4 billion from 0.33 NA and 0.55 NA EUV systems as well as strong DUV bookings.

Based on a report from IC Insights, it appears that the demand for semiconductors and memory is starting to slow down. The slowdown is industry wide, with most major players having seen a reduction in sales in June compared to May. Although the report is focused on Taiwanes semiconductor companies, it also mentions Micron, who is expecting a slowdown in the third quarter of this year. Micron is reportedly expecting a drop in sales by as much as 17 percent, although this past quarter the company saw an increase in sales by 11 percent compared to the previous quarter, or 19 percent compared to last year, so it could simply be that the market is starting to normalise.

As for the Taiwanese semiconductor companies, TSMC saw a reduction in sales of five percent in June, although its competitor UMC saw an increase of two percent. Two other Taiwanese foundries, Powerchip and Vanguard, saw a decrease of four percent and an increase of three percent respectively, which shows that the foundry businesses are seeing change based on the type of chips they make. Apart from Winbond and Macronix, the other four companies in the report saw a decrease in sales by anything between two and 26 percent. Novatek, a manufacturer of semiconductors for the display industry saw the biggest dip in sales, with memory manufacturer Nanya seeing a drop of 16 percent. It should be pointed out that Novatek saw an increase in sales of 78 percent during the pandemic, which suggests their customers might not be seeing the same demand for their end products as they did over the past two years. For now, this could just be a slowdown over the summer months, when demand is usually quite low, but it could also be an indication of a return to a more normalised market.

Sony revealed during a recent earnings call that they had shipped 19.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide since release which is 3.3 million units less then they had expected. This shortfall can be attributed to the difficulties Sony faced in acquiring all the necessary components however the company expects shipments to increase next financial year with a target of 18 million units. Sony also noted that game sales for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 reached 14.5 million in the last quarter compared to 7.9 million the previous year. The companies PlayStation Plus service saw a loss of 200,000 subscribers down to 47.4 million in March 2022 from 47.6 million in March 2021 while active monthly users also dropped from 109 million to 106 million.

Toshiba Electronic Components Taiwan Corporation announced HDD shipment unit and Exabyte grew 4% and 61%, respectively in 2021. The company shipped 54.68 million units equaling 187.24 Exabytes for the year. Nearline, Mission Critical, Desktop/CE segments posted higher unit and Exabyte results for the year with Nearline HDDs leading all applications with units surging 73% and Exabytes skyrocketing 114%. Toshiba set a new shipment record for Nearline HDDs in 4CQ21, as units grew to 2.90 million units totaling 33.93 Exabytes for the quarter and was up over 94% from a year ago. Toshiba led the industry in Y-Y growth in eight categories for the year, and holds a unique position as an HDD company posting unit growth in 2021.

"Toshiba continues to execute in the Nearline space, and this is reflected in the company's new Nearline unit shipment record in 4CQ21," stated Ed Burns, Research Director at IDC. "Toshiba's cutting-edge technology such as FC-MAMR (Flux-Controlled - Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording) and MAS-MAMR (Microwave Assisted Switching - Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording) should further their competitiveness in the Nearline HDD market."

According to an industry report by IC Insights, AMD will see a yearly growth rate of no less than 65 percent this year, compared to 2020, whereas Intel is expected to have a slightly negative growth rate of one percent. The report includes the top 25 semiconductor sales leaders, ranked by growth rate, although it should be pointed out that some of them are foundries and not just semiconductor companies.

AMD is closely followed by MediaTek, which is expected to reach a 60 percent growth rate this year, followed by Nvidia at 54 percent and Qualcomm and 51 percent growth. The only surprise in the top five is PRC based SMIC, which saw a 39 percent growth this year, despite, or maybe because of the US sanctions against various Chinese IC makers.

Today, ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2021 third-quarter results. "Our third-quarter net sales came in at €5.2 billion with a gross margin of 51.7%, both within our guidance. Our third-quarter net bookings came in at €6.2 billion, including €2.9 billion from EUV systems. The demand continues to be high. The ongoing digital transformation and current chip shortage fuel the need to increase our capacity to meet the current and expected future demand for Memory and for all Logic nodes. ASML expects fourth-quarter net sales between €4.9 billion and €5.2 billion with a gross margin between 51% and 52%. ASML expects R&D costs of around €670 million and SG&A costs of around €195 million. For the full year, we are on track to achieving growth approaching 35%," said ASML President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink.

Despite the current shortage of just about everything, Foxconn doesn't appear to be suffering, as the company has reported record sales for the third quarter of this year. The company recorded sales of close to NT$1.4 trillion, or about US$50 billion, with a consolidated revenue of just over NT$585.7 billion or about US$20.9 billion.

Sales revenue for Foxconn increased 8.8 percent compared to the same period last year and a 3.44 percent increase quarter on quarter, with sales in September being the best so far this year for the company. The top grossing product groups included consumer smart devices, computers and cloud networking products. This is likely due to no small part due to Apple launching the iPhone 13, as well as its new tablet products last month. Foxconn is expecting a gross profit of 12 to 13 percent for the second half of 2021, which is a significant increase from around 8 to 9 percent for the first half of the year.

According to NPD data, Xbox just set a new hardware sales record the past month of June in the U.S., outselling PlayStation to the tune of a cool $200 million. The Xbox division cumulatively brought in a total $401 million dollars in the past month of June, marking a year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth to the tune of 112%. That large, $401 million number also marks a new record for Xbox and its Microsoft parent - the previous revenue record for the Xbox division was set way back in 2011. ten years later, it can be said that Xbox is better than ever before.

That same $401 million revenue from Xbox hardware clearly puts Sony's PlayStation in the rear-view mirror, as the company "only" achieved a $207 million revenue for June 2021 - a 1% decline YoY. That Microsoft managed to pull this off in the hardware shortage scenario we currently live in is impressive; and it does speak to the amount of pent-up demand that's still vying to enter the company's coffers. The record comes a month after Microsoft announced the deployment of Xbox Series X server blades to its xCloud programme, which occurred on June 26th. It appears likely that the company was distributing its Series X production capabilities between the retail sector and its own xCloud service before June 26th (with the additional time required for installation and all that entails), which would explain the sudden record in June. As Microsoft freed xCloud-bound capacity to the retail sector, the record thus ensued.

VMware today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Rangarajan (Raghu) Raghuram as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors, effective June 1, 2021. An industry veteran, Raghuram is a strategic business leader who currently holds the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Products and Cloud Services at VMware.

"I am thrilled to have Raghu step into the role of CEO at VMware. Throughout his career, he has led with integrity and conviction, playing an instrumental role in the success of VMware," commented Michael Dell, chairman of the VMware Board of Directors. "Raghu is now in position to architect VMware's future, helping customers and partners accelerate their digital businesses in this multi-cloud world."

Worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment surged 19% from $59.8 billion in 2019 to a new all-time high of $71.2 billion in 2020, SEMI, the industry association representing the global electronics product design and manufacturing supply chain, reported today. The data is now available in the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.

For the first time, China claimed the largest market for new semiconductor equipment with sales growth of 39% to $18.72 billion. Sales in Taiwan, the second-largest equipment market, remained flat in 2020 with sales of $17.15 billion after showing strong growth in 2019. Korea registered 61% growth to $16.08 billion to maintain the third position. Annual spending also increased 21% in Japan and 16% in Europe as both regions are recovering from the contraction in 2019. Receipts in North America decreased 20% in 2020 following three years of consecutive growth.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced global semiconductor industry sales were $39.6 billion for the month of February 2021, an increase of 14.7% over the February 2020 total of $34.5 billion, but 1.0% less than the January 2021 total of $40.0 billion. Monthly sales are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. SIA represents 98% of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. chip firms.

"Global semiconductor sales during the first two months of the year have outpaced sales from early in 2020, when the pandemic began to spread in parts of the world," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Sales into the China market saw the largest year-to-year growth, largely because sales there were down substantially early last year."