The Electronics Industry

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Also from John Taylor of Stanford:

What is the biggest misunderstanding that people have about inflation, especially right now?


The biggest misunderstanding is that people do not realize that monetary policy is a major cause of the increase in inflation. The Federal Reserve has kept its interest rate – the federal fund rate – much lower than in other recent years. It is even lower, at 2.33% than the inflation rate, which is over 7 or 8%. We have not seen such a large discrepancy since the 1970s when inflation also picked up. This extra low-interest rate, which is due to monetary policy, has been a key reason for the higher inflation rate.

What causes inflation? | Stanford News.

[rthonpm]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Interest rates have been artificially low in the US for far too long as it stands. One would think that after the disastrous impact of the 2009 collapse that people would have seen that too easy access to credit leads to disaster. You want to cool demand? Increase interest rates. I'm also curious when Biden was responsible for the actions of the Federal Reserve since they are not an executive branch entity.

I worked for an investment bank for almost a decade in my younger days before and slightly after the dot com bubble. Back then economists were telling us that profits weren't the driving factor of a company's success. They turned out wrong, and they've been terrible in terms of predicting. It's a trailing indicator profession.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Ways The President Can (And Can’t) Influence The Federal Reserve

[slimslob]

Re: The Electronics Industry

If inflation was limited to just the US I could see you having a stronger argument, but the same situation is playing out worldwide, and in many countries in Europe and Asia is considerably worse. The US has weathered the upswing in inflation considerably better than Europe: unemployment is still at historical lows and corporate profits are high. The main issue in this country is dated logistics and trying to get the crates from the ships to the trucks. Products are here, they're just sitting on the docks instead of distribution centres.

Quite simply, constrain supply everywhere with a higher demand than usual and all kinds of craziness ensues. The system of distributed manufacturing works until it doesn't and there seems to finally be a realisation that going cheap on the operations side doesn't always work. Undoing forty plus years of bad corporate decisions is going to take time.

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At the Port of Los Angeles the problem is not just that the products are sitting on the docks. Products are also sitting off shore on cargo ships waiting for the opportunity get into port and unload. The problem is getting the Containerized cargo off the dock and moving toward its destination. The true problem is a shortage of both short and long haul tractors and drivers to move the the containers out of the port. If you are an independent driver, you are not allowed to enter the port.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Demand drops ‘significantly’

“We have significantly less demand, especially for [shipping of] durable goods,” said Maresk Shipping Lines CEO Soren Skou. “We see demand globally being driven down. Not as much by a recession or inflation, but more by the fact that there was overdemand during the pandemic.

“When many of us were not able to travel and spend money on services, we all upgraded our houses in different ways. And we don’t need another flat-screen or another washing machine or another couch.”

Pandemic effect now in reverse

Skou sees the current ocean shipping supply-demand dynamic as the reverse of the one driving the pandemic peak.

“If you go back to late 2020 and the beginning of 2021, when everything really took off from a demand and congestion point of view, on one hand, we had sharply increasing demand for goods around the world, partly driven by lots of stimulus into the economy. At the same time, supply of labor was constrained because of people being ill or being restricted from going to work. So, we had this double effect of both more demand and less [transport] supply.

“Right now, it’s working in the other direction,” he said. There is significantly less demand “at the same time we see labor coming back because there are no [COVID] restrictions.”

Demand up for end-to-end logistics

Skou maintained that “demand for end-to-end logistics and integrated logistics has clearly gone up.”

“The pandemic meant that our customers are reconsidering global supply chains. They’re thinking more about how much inventory they have and where it is. And about how many suppliers they have and where they’re located. They’re saying they can no longer rely on just one country. For many of them, that specifically means they are moving part of their production out of China. Most of them are also thinking in terms of omnichannel [distribution], fulfilling goods to both physical stories and to consumers directly.

“All of these things together mean that customers see the need for more integrated logistics. It complicates and fragments supply chains, which makes it even more important that you have a good logistics provider that can help you keep control of your supply chain.”

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

HP, Lenovo and Dell see PC shipments continue to decline in Q3, while Apple bucks the trend

• Global personal computer shipments declined 15% year-over-year in the third quarter, according to IDC.
• Lenovo, HP, and Dell declined saw year-over-year shipments fall by 16%, 28% and 21% respectively.
• Apple was the only manufacturer to see third quarter PC shipments rise by 40%, IDC found.

The personal computing market saw shipments continue to cool in the third quarter as demand waned and supply chain issues persisted, according to the data from the International Data Corporation released Monday.

Compared with this time last year, shipments were down 15%, which is still well above pre-pandemic levels, IDC found. Global shipments totaled 74.3 million in the quarter, down from 87.3 million during the same period last year.

HP saw PC shipments decline about 28%, Dell shipments were down 21% and Lenovo 16%. Meanwhile, Apple bucked the trend with PC shipments rising 40% in the third quarter.

AMD hinted at this headwind last week when the chipmaker cut its sales forecast on Thursday for the third quarter, blaming a larger-than-expected decline in the PC market and supply chain issues.

Investors will likely be watching for signs of weakness in PC shipments when Microsoft and Intel report third quarter earnings later this month. Microsoft is set to release results on Oct. 25, while Intel will report on Oct. 27.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Manufacturing orders from China down 40% in unrelenting demand collapse

• U.S. manufacturing orders in China are down 40% in what a logistics manager described to CNBC as an unrelenting demand collapse.
• Asia-based shipping firm HLS recently told clients it is a “very bad time for the shipping industry.”
• China to U.S. container volume was down 21% between August and November.
• Chinese factories are shutting down two weeks earlier than usual ahead of Chinese New Year.

U.S. logistic managers are bracing for delays in the delivery of goods from China in early January as a result of canceled sailings of container ships and rollovers of exports by ocean carriers.

Carriers have been executing on an active capacity management strategy by announcing more blank sailings and suspending services to balance supply with demand. “The unrelenting decline in container freight rates from Asia, caused by a collapse in demand, is compelling ocean carriers to blank more sailings than ever before as vessel utilization hits new lows,” said Joe Monaghan, CEO of Worldwide Logistics Group.

U.S. manufacturing orders in China are down 40 percent, according to the latest CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map data. As a result of the decrease in orders, Worldwide Logistics tells CNBC it is expecting Chinese factories to shut down two weeks earlier than usual for the Chinese Lunar New Year — Chinese New Year’s Eve falls on Jan. 21 next year. The seven days after the holiday are considered a national holiday.

“Many of the manufacturers will be closed in early January for the holiday, which is much earlier than last year,” Monaghan said.

Supply chain research firm Project44 tells CNBC that after reaching record-breaking levels of trade during the pandemic lockdowns, vessel TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) volume from China to the U.S. has significantly pulled back since the end of summer 2022 — including a decline of 21% in total vessel container volume between August and November.

Asia based global shipping firm HLS cited trade data showing that U.S. imports from Asia plunged in October to their lowest level in 20 months. The spot rate for a container from Asia to the U.S. West Coast has crossed the breakeven point, “with little room for further reductions,” it wrote.

The large West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have experienced the largest drop in trade, according to Josh Brazil, vice president of supply chain insights at Project44, as shippers also rerouted some of their shipments to the East Coast to avoid the risk of a major union strike at West Coast ports.

HLS expects most carriers to extend their West Coast rates until December 14, holding at $1,300-$1,400 per forty-foot equivalent containers (FEU). However, U.S. East Coast rates are expected to drop by $200 or $300 to average $3,200-3,300 per FEU in the first half of December.
The recent rise in Covid lockdowns in China continues to impact manufacturing operations and delay cargo outputs. There are also local access obstacles for cross-province and cross-city transportation, mostly related to truck driver testing requirements, with trucking capacity to be largely affected.

[rthonpm]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Most tech goods are going to be reliable and usable for at least the next five or six years, and most of the demand for new devices has already been met. It's not 2003 any longer where the annual change in processors or storage were often significant. These are mature markets where the changes are fairly minor.

For the deal conscious among you, there are going to be some pretty good sales in the new year to try and clean out inventory.

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[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

Most tech goods are going to be reliable and usable for at least the next five or six years, and most of the demand for new devices has already been met. It's not 2003 any longer where the annual change in processors or storage were often significant. These are mature markets where the changes are fairly minor.

For the deal conscious among you, there are going to be some pretty good sales in the new year to try and clean out inventory.

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... Toshiba is not planning on any more hardware changes in the near future. The current OEM original hardware product is performing better than expected.

If anything, the focus is now on reducing the cost on the hardware side. For example, the blinking LEDs in the NIC card are now gone replaced by an LCD panel indicator and a few static interior parts that were made of metal are now plastic. Both very small costs saving multiplied by many 1,000s of copiers built.

The effort to reduce the hardware cost by deletion or substitution is because components prices continue to rise and are often a scarce commodity. COVID continues to impair the ability of sub suppliers in China to ship components.

All R&D effort is put into the software side.

New copier sales are still fairly strong spurred on in part by a shortage of the best sellers in the product line. The inventory situation is overall getting better and the trucking of product is arriving on almost pre-Covid timelines.

While a copier may be reliable, the cost to replace colour CMY developer in some models is so high that after five years a copier can quickly become uneconomical to repair should the developer material need to be replaced.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Electronics Industry

While a copier may be reliable, the cost to replace colour CMY developer in some models is so high that after five years a copier can quickly become uneconomical to repair should the developer material need to be replaced.

I hear this from time and time and always wonder what they're doing with the money that they were paid on the service contract??!!

[tsbservice]

Re: The Electronics Industry

I hear this from time and time and always wonder what they're doing with the money that they were paid on the service contract??!!

That Plus the fact there is no such thing like CMY developers, all developers are born black.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

... the accelerating new rise of COVID in China due to the failure of their locally produced vaccines is beginning to have a damaging effect on the production of electronics for many industries like the copier and printer industry. There were an estimated 250M new infections in December!

Production of new product is dropping as OEMS have to temporarily shutter production facilities and the supply of components to these plants becomes more scarce.

While ocean transportation delivery times seems to be improving, the actual manufacturing of finished goods is decreasing resulting in ever longer wait times for new product to arrive and higher prices for end users.

[subaro]

Re: The Electronics Industry

... the accelerating new rise of COVID in China due to the failure of their locally produced vaccines is beginning to have a damaging effect on the production of electronics for many industries like the copier and printer industry. There were an estimated 250M new infections in December!

Production of new product is dropping as OEMS have to temporarily shutter production facilities and the supply of components to these plants becomes more scarce.

While ocean transportation delivery times seems to be improving, the actual manufacturing of finished goods is decreasing resulting in ever longer wait times for new product to arrive and higher prices for end users.

So wait. If the Chinese vaccines are a failure , then is it not suppose to affect their entire population, as it must, IF that is the cause of rise of infections in China. Then, the whole world supply of goods is in jeopardy as most come from there. The vaccines narrative does not make sense in China, as they had the shots at the same time as the world population. So what about the booster shots in the west where the supposed superior vaccines are made, are they being implemented ?. What about Russia, they have their own vaccines too, so are theirs just as good as the west.
All this is not adding up. All about control and manipulation to bring in the WEF agenda, for the 4th industrial revolution. Greed and pride has played a huge part in our current situation plus others that I will not mention here.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Electronics Industry

So wait. If the Chinese vaccines are a failure , then is it not suppose to affect their entire population, as it must, IF that is the cause of rise of infections in China. Then, the whole world supply of goods is in jeopardy as most come from there. The vaccines narrative does not make sense in China, as they had the shots at the same time as the world population. So what about the booster shots in the west where the supposed superior vaccines are made, are they being implemented ?. What about Russia, they have their own vaccines too, so are theirs just as good as the west.
All this is not adding up. All about control and manipulation to bring in the WEF agenda, for the 4th industrial revolution. Greed and pride has played a huge part in our current situation plus others that I will not mention here.

... Western vaccines are being imported into China but not in large enough numbers and what does arrive is immediately consumed by the elite class.

Almost the entire Chinese population has only built up only a low level of immunity to COVID.

Not much commentary about the efficacy of any Russian vaccines that are out there but as Russia's electronic exports are zero that is not the concern of this thread.

[subaro]

Re: The Electronics Industry

... Western vaccines are being imported into China but not in large enough numbers and what does arrive is immediately consumed by the elite class.

Almost the entire Chinese population has only built up only a low level of immunity to COVID.

Not much commentary about the efficacy of any Russian vaccines that are out there but as Russia's electronic exports are zero that is not the concern of this thread.

Where are the news feed for your reply above. As far as I have read, China has not imported any western vaccine. See below. Not sure of the source, but it is what it is.


Will China Allow MRNA Vaccines To Boost Vulnerable Population? - Health Policy Watch