ihs

Intel's market-moving statement today that it expects a fourth-quarter revenue shortfall of roughly $1 billion has crystallized the impact of the hard disk drive shortage. So how bad is it?

A report last week from IHS-iSuppli said it's pretty bad--a preview of what Intel said today. That is, the flooding in Thailand will hit PC shipments in the first quarter. iSuppli says the shortfall will be about 3.8 million PCs.

And it will knock down PC numbers for the whole year. Global PC shipments for the whole of 2012 are now expected to expand by only 6.… Read more

PC shipments will take a hit in the first quarter next year to the tune of about 4 million units as a result of the continuing hard-disk drive shortage, IHS-iSuppli said today.

Flooding in Thailand has wreaked havoc on hard-disk drive (HDD) supply, as manufacturers try to recover from inundated component plants. This will result in a shortfall of 3.8 million PC shipments in the first quarter of 2012, according to IHS-iSuppli.

Worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2012 will amount to 84.2 million units, compared with the earlier forecast of 88 million, the market researcher … Read more

When 2011 is wrapped up, the consumer electronics industry, despite all the marketing and highly-touted gadgets, will have had a disappointing year.

That's according to market research firm IHS iSuppli, which estimates that revenue this year will total $357.3 billion, up only 1.5 percent from a year ago, and well off of the 6.4 percent growth the firm had previously expected.

It seems that despite the bluster and hype, the consumer electronics industry was just as susceptible to the downturn in consumer spending as every other industry. While the holiday season often makes up a bulk … Read more

Bad news for anybody in the business of making the chips that power PCs and store movies on iPads.

IHS today said it's dramatically reduced its forecast for semiconductor sales worldwide for 2011, cutting the expected growth rate from 2.9 percent all the way down to 1.2 percent. The industry has swung from boom to bust many times in its decades of existence, but hard times still have the same unpleasant ripple effects: less money to fund research into next-generation products and to pay for next-generation manufacturing facilities.

And it's those investments that ultimately matter to … Read more

Wal-Mart's Vudu movie service surpassed Amazon's digital movie offering in the first half of 2011, according to a new research report.

As part of its Screen Digest Media Research program, research firm IHS today said that Vudu jumped from just 1 percent market share during the first half of last year, to 5.3 percent by the end of the same period this year in the United States. That number puts Vudu on top of Amazon, which went from owning 4 percent of the market with its movie service last year, up to 4.2 percent this year. … Read more

The demand for smartphones and tablets is causing manufacturers to spend more on chips for wireless devices than for traditional computers, says a report out yesterday from IHS iSuppli.

As the tech industry shifts more of its emphasis from PCs to mobile gadgets, the wireless segment is poised to become the leading market for chip buying starting this year.

Manufacturers will buy $55.4 billion of semiconductors for wireless devices this year, a jump of 10.7 percent from 2010, according to IHS. But spending on chips for computers will reach $53.1 billion this year, a gain of just … Read more

iPad leads in brand satisfaction among U.S. consumers, though a relatively obscure tablet maker came in a close second, according to IHS iSuppli.

Rivals face a steep challenge in the U.S. because consumers are fixated on Apple's tablet to the detriment of other brands, according to the "U.S. Tablet Consumer Preference" study released today by iSuppli.

"Apple's competitors in the tablet market already are facing major challenges in offering products that can match the iPad's combination of optimized hardware, software, operating system, applications, content and app store," Rhoda Alexander, an … Read more

Tablets--largely consisting of Apple's iPad--have become the main engine of growth for mobile broadband devices, according to a study released today by IHS iSuppli.

The firm estimates that 157.9 million mobile broadband devices, which consist of products including tablets, notebooks, Netbook computers, and electronic readers, will be sold this year. That's up nearly 60 percent from the 100.1 million units sold in 2010.

The consistently high rate of growth can be traced back to the burgeoning tablet market. In particular, consumers have snapped up the iPad with increasing frequency--Apple sold 9.25 million such devices in … Read more

Up to 3.5 million 3D Blu-ray movie discs have been sold in the U.S. since mid 2010, according to a new report from research firm IHS Screen Digest.

Half of these discs were picked up through retailers, while the rest were bundled with 3D TVs, says the study, titled "Life in 3D: BD3D's first year of sales." Furthermore, 507,293 out of 1.75 million retail copies flew off the shelves in 2010 alone, compared with the 363,000 2D editions sold in 2006, the first year the format debuted. (Do note that the Sony-led Blu-ray standard was competing against the HD-DVD camp back then, whereas 3D Blu-ray has cornered the entire 3D movie disc market for home consumers.)

"Once [consumers] have 3D in the home, they love it and are hungry for content, snapping up BD3D movies as soon as they become available," said Jan Saxton, film entertainment senior analyst for IHS. "Sales reached this high level despite the fact that the number of BD3D titles on the market was relatively small compared to non-3D Blu-ray."

The growth could accelerate in the second half of this year, the report says, with the number of 3D Blu-ray titles available expected to reach 93 by the end of 2011.

(Source: Crave Asia)… Read more