Analysts Now Believe PC Market Will Shrink This Year

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

Financial analysts are closely watching the semiconductor market following Intel's recent and somewhat unexpected revenue warning.

Citigroup downgraded Intel, AMD and Nvidia and told clients that it now believes the PC market will contract in 2012.

The new assessment is a major turn for the PC market forecast and reflects a storm that is brewing above the industry. Analyst Glen Yeung said that less than 5 percent of the PC production in H2 2012 integrates touch screens and therefore "negates" the advantage of the new Windows 8 UI. Touchscreens remain expensive and Microsoft is also putting a high price tag on Windows RT, which requires notebook makers to bundle Office with the OS.

While he says that tablets will be impacting PC sales, there seems to be an indirect blame on Microsoft that it did not prepare hardware makers and its customers enough for the arrival of Windows 8. Windows 8 may sell just like any other Windows OS before and achieve record sales, but the new UI is Windows 8's Achilles' heel: If the hardware to support the UI is not available, and if the available hardware does not make sense in a user scenario, Windows 8 could fail.

Yeung reduced his stock forecast for Intel from $32 to $25.75, AMD from $6.50 to $4.25 and Nvidia from $16.50 to $15.25.

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Wolfgang Gruener
20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • yzfr1guy
    blah blah blah
    Reply
  • lahawzel
    Man, I remember when AMD stock was not $4, but $40. And this was only six years ago! What happened?!
    Reply
  • slabbo
    "Citigroup downgraded Intel, AMD and Nvidia and told clients that it now believes the PC market will contract in 2012."

    2012 is almost over! does it really take a huge corporation to analyse what already is 3/4 done?
    Reply
  • mcd023
    don't they say that almost every year? Oh, I just purchased my first SSD! Yay! It's OCZ, so I'm hoping that it's not a DOA or messed up lol
    Reply
  • Citi selling? I'm buying! These jag-off's almost destroyed their whole bank in 2009, the hell do they know? Wall street = crooks
    Reply
  • RADIO_ACTIVE
    I think these analysts brains have shrunk...
    Reply
  • boju
    The thruth is out there! I want to believe...

    In ALIENS!!!
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    slabbo"Citigroup downgraded Intel, AMD and Nvidia and told clients that it now believes the PC market will contract in 2012."2012 is almost over! does it really take a huge corporation to analyse what already is 3/4 done?Yes, because most of the sales for the year are done during back to school (which we are still in the middle of), and Christmas sales. The calendar year may be nearly over, but we are only ~1/2-1/3 through the total sales for the year.
    Reply
  • ojas
    Yeah whatever. I think these analyst's claims are more likely to find their way into the trendy journo's article, following which uninformed shareholders will start selling.

    It's all hype, one way or the other.

    AMD and Nvidia have volatile stocks anyway. Intel's far more stable, i don't expect this to happen.

    But then again, i'm not an "analyst" so no one will believe me :(
    Reply
  • husker
    If I start predicting now that iPad sales will drop, and continue predicting it, eventually I will be right. Maybe I should be an industry analyst.
    Reply