GPU Shipments May Drop by 50%, Nvidia Braces for Long Winter

Gaming monitor
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Intel, AMD, and Nvidia have all revised their shipment and revenue projections for this year — with revenue estimations plummeting for Intel and Nvidia, according to DigiTimes. Graphics card shipments are also expected to drop by up to 50% thanks to the recent cryptocurrency crash.

Intel expects to suffer a reduction of between $8 and $11 billion in revenue, and has dropped its revenue goal to $65 - $68 billion. The company also estimates a 10% drop in PC sales (compared to 2021). This isn't that surprising — the COVID pandemic artificially boosted demand for computer products in 2021. 

Nvidia also expects to take a big hit, thanks to both the post-pandemic drop in demand and the major cryptocurrency crash earlier this year. Taiwanese graphics card suppliers estimate their 2022 shipments will fall by between 40 - 50%, and sources cited by Digitimes say this will cause Nvidia's revenue to fall "at a pace beyond imagination." 

Nvidia is also taking a big hit, thanks to this issue as well as the major cryptocurrency crash this year. As a result, Taiwanese graphics card suppliers have estimated their 2022 shipments will fall by around 40 - 50%. Sources say this will kill Nvidia's revenue throughout the whole year with an estimated fall "beyond imagination". Nvidia's preliminary Q2 revenue report, released earlier this week, showed a significantly worse quarter than projected.  

The decline in demand for consumer tech is now affecting demand for less-important chip component manufacturers making display ICs, panels, and more. One such company, notebook MCU and touchscreen controller manufacturer Elan Microelectronics, expects a revenue drop of 30% this quarter. 

Chromebook shipments are also expected to take a 50 - 60% hit in volume. Vendors such as Lenovo and HP both expect a 50 - 60% decline in shipments for their particular Chromebook models. Windows notebook and PC sales are expected to drop by 10% and 15%, respectively, throughout the year. Asus, Dell, Acer, and HP are all having difficulty driving higher sales in the gaming and commercial notebook sectors. 

AMD and Apple Are Doing Well 

While other manufacturers are struggling to keep sales up, AMD and Apple have somehow managed to circumvent these otherwise industry-wide problems.

AMD has seen massive growth: the company's Q2 revenue increased by 70%, thanks to market share gains "stolen" from Intel in data center CPUs and embedded processor growth. (The acquisition of Xilinx has also helped AMD gain more market share revenue.)

But AMD has increased its expectations for shipment losses from 7 - 9% to 14 - 16%. That said, AMD still expects its Q3 revenues to see a slight increase overall. 

AMD's growth is largely thanks to Intel losing overall market share, according to Digitimes' report. Intel still dominates almost 80% of the market, but lost a ton of orders from Apple when the latter became its own CPU supplier (with the M1 and M2 ARM chips). AMD's rapid expansion in the data center, as well as its revenue stream from Xilinx (which has enabled AMD to circumvent a lot of supply chain issues in 2022), have also contributed to Intel's troubles. 

Apple has also been seeing incredible growth on the Macbook side — with a record-breaking 28 million units estimated to be sold in 2022.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.