The manufacturer of computers and laptops HP has warned Russian partners about the need to confirm or adjust orders for electronics, which they plan to receive in December, by the end of June, otherwise deliveries may not take place or will be limited.
About this “Vedomosti” was told by two sources close to the companies selling computers. The manager of one of the IT distributors also knows about this appeal. According to one of Vedomosti’s interlocutors, usually pre-New Year purchases are planned in December of the previous year: “However, due to the shortage of electronic components and computers in the global market, HP decided to resort to shorter-term planning. This means that if the orders of retailers are not confirmed by the beginning of July, computers produced for Russia may be shipped to other countries. “
According to another source of Vedomosti, other electronics manufacturers sent similar requests to Russian companies – he did not name specific brands.
Representatives of large retailers, interviewed by Vedomosti, did not officially comment on the situation.
CEO of HP Inc. in Eastern Europe, Aleksey Voronkov claims that the company informed only corporate customers about the acceleration in procurement planning: “It is important for them to place an order at the plant by the end of June in order to be in time with deliveries on time, otherwise the delivery will be in 2022. We expect difficulties with the availability of components for PCs will continue at least until the end of 2021. If earlier the deficit was mainly related to processors and matrixes of screens, today it extends to a wider range of components. “
The situation is generally better than last year, but demand continues to outstrip supply, and delivery times are still significant, Voronkov says.
“The desire of vendors to plan shipments for a relatively short time is understandable – due to the failure of supply chains caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and a shortage of components, delivery times have become difficult to predict,” said Dmitry Kravchenko, CEO of Acer in Russia. – If the component base can be assembled quickly, it is possible to deliver a batch of computers within the previously established period.
But often this does not happen – and sometimes customers now receive consignments of goods ordered in the second quarter of 2020 ”.
Other market participants interviewed by Vedomosti agree that requests for prompt confirmation of orders for PCs are associated with a growing shortage of components. Because of this, by the beginning of 2021, purchase prices for computers and laptops in the Russian market increased by 20%, their suppliers and manufacturers told Vedomosti earlier.
“The growth of the deficit is influenced by two factors: firstly, the pandemic led to temporary stoppages of workshops, broke logistics, significantly slowed down transportation – just remember the multi-day idle trucks at the British border or the closure of some provinces of China for transport,” explains the director of strategic development Micron ”Karina Abagyan. “Secondly, there has been a wave of demand for chips: an increase in the number of remote workplaces, the development of“ deserted ”services, green technologies, video surveillance – all this requires new electronic components.”
The crisis in the semiconductor market is intensifying and it will affect many segments – from sales of computer equipment, server, network equipment and data storage systems to automotive and consumer electronics, forecasts Alexander Sysoev, head of IT infrastructure at CROC: corporate segment, delays range from a couple of weeks to several months. ” According to CROC’s data, in some cases the rise in prices for computer equipment is up to 50%.
“The deficit will end only when producers increase output, but this will not happen earlier than in a year or two,” Sysoev predicts. “Some vendors have already informed their distributors and end users about this.”
Increasing production capacity is expensive and difficult, says Abagyan: “The threshold for entering such production is from $ 2 billion. Over the past 20 years, new players in the field of microelectronics have emerged only on the basis of mergers and acquisitions of existing industries.”
“Prices will continue to rise, and by the end of 2021 computers will rise in price by about 50% more – especially if the ruble exchange rate weakens somewhat,” concludes Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-Analytics.
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