Intel Leads Unexpectedly Large Decline in Semiconductor Market Inventory

[AtenRa]

Intel Leads Unexpectedly Large Decline in Semiconductor Market Inventory – Researchers. by xbitlabs.com

 

[Jimzz]

Well they did get burned on having such a large Sandy overstock. Guess they are playing it safe.

 

[grimpr]

Tick, tock...global economic crisis hits everything, top down with Intel inevitably slowing down...now lets make way for the financial speculators to chime in.

 

[jpiniero]

There's only so much Intel can steal from AMD. Cutting back is the right call, although I imagine that means sales will be ugly this year.

 

[grimpr]

Even Haswell cant do anything for them, despite the stock market fanboys cheering for it.

 

[Ferzerp]

Even Haswell cant do anything for them, despite the stock market fanboys cheering for it.

Wishful thinking by someone who apparently either has a love for one company, or a hate for a different one.

Calling others "fanboys" in an attempt to bolster an unsubstantiated position.

-4/10 would not be baited again.

 

[svenge]

Wishful thinking by someone who apparently either has a love for one company, or a hate for a different one.

Calling others "fanboys" in an attempt to bolster an unsubstantiated position.

-4/10 would not be baited again.

Indeed. I also love how he ignored that AMD's inventory dropped over twice as much (in percentage terms) compared to Intel. I'm no proctologist, but he sounds butt-hurt.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Even Haswell cant do anything for them, despite the stock market fanboys cheering for it.

Apparently whatever AMD is doing didnt do much for them either. Percentage wise they were down more than twice what Intel was.

Edit: didnt see your post svenge, good point anyway though.

 

[Sheep221]

It's definitely due to mobile IT being now very fast growing and taking over the conventional x86 market. Although I don't believe the decline is this high, over the last few years the tech magazines and sites became a very generous in providing false information.

 

[grimpr]

Wishful thinking by someone who apparently either has a love for one company, or a hate for a different one.

Calling others "fanboys" in an attempt to bolster an unsubstantiated position.

-4/10 would not be baited again.

Wishful?, i dont personally give a damn about Intels financials in constrast to some so called tech enthusiasts in here that have Intel shares or stock market portfolios and get easily offended, i was screaming out the plain truth, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

[grimpr]

Indeed. I also love how he ignored that AMD's inventory dropped over twice as much (in percentage terms) compared to Intel. I'm no proctologist, but he sounds butt-hurt.

Nah, just having a good laugh at your post.

 

[grimpr]

It's definitely due to mobile IT being now very fast growing and taking over the conventional x86 market. Although I don't believe the decline is this high, over the last few years the tech magazines and sites became a very generous in providing false information.

Them and the so called financial anal-ysts.

 

[Homeles]

It's definitely due to mobile IT being now very fast growing and taking over the conventional x86 market. Although I don't believe the decline is this high, over the last few years the tech magazines and sites became a very generous in providing false information.

Yeah, just look at Qualcomm on the chart. AMD, Intel, et al. are just on the wrong side of the market for growth. Silvermont and Haswell to a lesser extent should address this, as far as Intel goes.

Wishful?, i dont personally give a damn about Intels financials in constrast to some so called tech enthusiasts in here that have Intel shares or stock market portfolios and get easily offended, i was screaming out the plain truth, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

When was the last time a tech giant on the level of Intel fell? Let me answer that for you: Never.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall" is nothing but a wet dream for the proletariat. Have you not been paying attention to the business world after the recession of 2008? Companies are too big to fail, now. They receive government bailouts, because their loss would be devastating to the economy.

 

[Ben90]

Isn't excess inventory a bad thing? As long as you can meet demand, you want as little as possible.

 

[Homeles]

Isn't excess inventory a bad thing? As long as you can meet demand, you want as little as possible.

Well, it's all relative to demand. If you have a high demand, your inventory will be large as well.

 

[Ferzerp]

Isn't excess inventory a bad thing? As long as you can meet demand, you want as little as possible.

In an ideal world, just in time manufacturing could meet all your demand and hold your inventory near zero. But how would you meet spikes in demand, etc?

Actually, here. This will explain far better than I would. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_in_time_(business)

 

[krumme]

It might be a combination of both weak market, and Intel and AMD changing portfolio to more mobile right now. Intel is gearing up for Haswell, AMD for Temash and Kabini, kabini reaching into lowend former piledriver market.

I read the decline for both Intel and AMD as an ability to change. If one of them was left with old stock now, it would be very bad.

 

[erunion]

This is just the result of already well known events. Intel and AMD had excessively high inventories going into Q4, due to weak sales in 2012. In Q4 Intel idled capacity to reduce inventory and AMD paid GF to not make chips.

This chart is backwards looking, not forward looking.

 

[Ajay]

Hmm, Xbitlabs researchers think that Apple's iPad & iPhone use Qualcomm's SoC.

 

[Idontcare]

Isn't excess inventory a bad thing? As long as you can meet demand, you want as little as possible.

Absolutely correct. The key is defining what is "excess" and what is "prudent" when it comes to inventory.

Excess inventory by definition is inventory that is not needed for the business to continue smooth operations.

It is inventory that should never have been made, or should have been sold by lowering prices a tad (supply/demand economics).

This is to be contrasted with inventory that really needs to be on hand to ensure everyone is getting product in a timely fashion.

Just in time manufacturing does not resolve the fact your customers are not physically located outside the factory door, and until FTL transporter technology is perfected you still have a fixed shipment time (and associated expense, air shipments are deadly more expensive than cargoship and rail shipments) to build-in to your inventory needs.

In manufacturing, inventory also includes WIP (work in progress). If it takes 5 weeks to produce a wafer from a fab then you have to have at least 5 weeks worth of WIP (inventory) building up in your fabs or you are going to have too little supply of chips come 5 weeks from now.

In general, these kinds of inventory reports have to be taken for what they are worth...why are we being presented with an inventory analysis? Because someone somewhere out there is trying to pay their mortgage by way of getting people to care enough about inventory reports that they will get the advertising revenue they need to pay that mortgage if they can develop a compelling story regarding inventory changes in the industry.

Is there really a story here? Not really, not in my estimation of how much inventory changes over time, intentionally so, in this industry. This is a mountain being made of a molehill because someone needs to pay their mortgage and all they have to write about is a molehill, so they got to jazz it up and get people thinking it is a mountain so the page impressions get to the level they need to be at.

 

[Homeles]

Hmm, Xbitlabs researchers think that Apple's iPad & iPhone use Qualcomm's SoC.

That's not what the article said. And Apple's products do contain Qualcomm's IP: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5661/the-new-ipad-4g-contains-qualcomms-mdm9600

 

[shady28]

Yeah, just look at Qualcomm on the chart. AMD, Intel, et al. are just on the wrong side of the market for growth. Silvermont and Haswell to a lesser extent should address this, as far as Intel goes.

When was the last time a tech giant on the level of Intel fell? Let me answer that for you: Never.

Ever heard of Sperry-Univac?

How about DEC?

 

[jpiniero]

Hmm, Xbitlabs researchers think that Apple's iPad & iPhone use Qualcomm's SoC.

Qualcomm makes more than just Snapdragon, y'know.

 

[mrmt]

Is there really a story here? Not really, not in my estimation of how much inventory changes over time, intentionally so, in this industry

Xbitlabs is making a joke of itself. Not only they cannot make a review right, every time someone writes about financials or marketing they screw up, and I'm not even counting the times they were acting like AMD cannon fodder.

Intel numbers were reported in january, and so were AMD numbers. Those numbers you are seeing at the table come from the SEC fillings of those companies, they are not research numbers, so no news here. Also the story quoted by xbitlabs is actually a press release for a very deep and expensive analysis that covers industry trends. The idiots at xbitlabs took the press release and quoted as if it were a story and as if it contained something new.

Where does this leaves us? That's right, nowhere. The numbers are not new, the trends are not new, and there is no story to talk about in the first place. Just a bunch of idiots trying to make money out of clicks.

 

[Ferzerp]

Just in time manufacturing does not resolve the fact your customers are not physically located outside the factory door, and until FTL transporter technology is perfected you still have a fixed shipment time (and associated expense, air shipments are deadly more expensive than cargoship and rail shipments) to build-in to your inventory needs.

I wasn't trying to suggest that it does. Merely that if everything else were ideal, that would be the best way to do it. Inventory must be had because everything isn't ideal. However, minimizing that inventory, while still meeting demand is what you *want* to do and not a bad thing. That was the point I was trying (and failing) to make.