The chip shortage has been going on for quite a while and though it seems the crisis was about to end Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger believes the shortage will last up to 2 years.
The Executive further added, based on the company’s recent earnings report, that this chip shortage will affect carious markets and the constraints will persist even after additional capacities are introduced to moderate the situation as these capacities were to overcome the losses faced by the company.
This crisis also affects the general computer market in Pakistan as the shortage of computer components has directly led to PCs and laptops having alarming prices. In a recent survey, the price of a laptop that was 2-3 years old faced an increased rate by 40-50 percentage. In a nutshell, if a consumer is purchasing a refurbished computer from any local computer store that was initially PKR 60,000 a few years ago will now have a price tag of about PKR 110,000.
With the rising cases of COVID throughout the country, it seems highly unlikely that different sectors of the industry will revert back to conventional tools. As of now, sectors such as business, healthcare, information technology, education, etc. are now fully dependent on digital tools and infrastructure hence the demand for computers has risen exponentially.
Such an issue has even reached multiple countries and as a result, US President Joe Biden pledged to invest $50 billion to help numerous tech giants recover the semiconductor industry and bring an end to the global shortage.
