As the global epidemic has driven home office and other needs, the PC market has soared in the past two years. Although demand is weakening in 2022 and has suffered a sharp downturn, Zhao Yi, research director of Jiwei Consulting, believes that this is normal, and the high shipments in the past two years have also overdrawn part of the demand.

"The global PC shipment data in the third quarter is similar to that of 2019, and it is still slightly higher. Considering that this downturn is in the context of intensified global inflation, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the lack of my country's consumption power, so Although the year-on-year decline is exaggerated, it is due to the high base last year, but it is still relatively normal in terms of scale." 

Shenzhen Meiyuxin Technology Co., Ltd. supplies a large number of ST single-chip microcomputer chips from stock.en.icmyx.com 

But the impact of the market downturn was immediate. The latest data from market research firm Mercury Research shows that shipments of PC processors in the second quarter of 2022 hit a nearly 30-year low, down more than 15% year-on-year. Not only that, according to data released by IDC, global PC sales in the third quarter also fell by 15% year-on-year. PC brands such as HP, Dell and Lenovo, which use Intel processors in their PC products, all saw sharp declines in sales this year.

Intel and AMD, which are the two heroes of x86 processors in the PC market, have undoubtedly felt the chill of conduction. In the second quarter of 2022, AMD's revenue was $6.55 billion, a year-over-year increase of 70%. However, AMD recently announced that its third-quarter revenue was about $5.6 billion, a significant decrease of $1.1 billion compared to previous expectations. This also reflects that the softening of the PC market may be much more severe than previously estimated, and coupled with the destocking of the supply chain, PC processor shipments continue to decline.

In comparison, Intel has suffered even more. It can be said that there are Arm architecture chasing troops outside and x86 rivals blocking it. As a stock market in the PC market, although the shipments in the post-pandemic era cannot be compared to 2021, Intel's penetration in PC shipments has dropped again and again.

According to data, from 2018 to the second quarter of 2022, in PC shipments, the shipments of PCs using Arm-based CPUs (including desktop PCs and portable notebooks) increased from 30% to nearly 40%, and AMD x86-based CPUs were used. Shipments increased from less than 5% to 12-13%, while those with Intel x86 architecture CPUs dropped from more than 60% to less than 50%.

Especially in the second quarter, Intel's PC chip business revenue fell by 25% year-on-year, and the third-quarter financial report is about to be released. It is conceivable that it is difficult to "rebound".