Hardware Shortages May Continue Into 2022, So What Can Consumers Do About It?

Hardware Shortages May Continue Into 2022, So What Can Consumers Do About It?

COVID related hardware shortages and merchandising shortages in general are not new, since the beginning of the pandemic we have seen shortages in food, toilet paper, cleaning products and even personal protective equipment (PPE) frontline workers desperately needed to stay safe.

Many of these shortages have been solved by an uptick in production. However, computer and electronic related shortages have been some of the worst hit and so far, the longest lasting with many experts saying we won’t see an end to them until 2022.

At the beginning of the pandemic as schools closed and many jobs went remote the shortages when it came to laptops and desktops made sense, students and workers needed devices to continue to learn and work on.

We saw that these shortages were solved when popular PC makers ramped up production and pushed forward new product launches to entice this entirely new market of PC consumers - many of which had abandoned bulkier hardware in favor of small and portable smart phones in years prior. It was common during this time for households to go from a single PC in the home to several.

Now as we’ve stepped into 2021, we’re seeing shortages when it comes to the components these devices are made of. Especially when it comes to computer chips otherwise known as semi-conductors.

We’re going to get a little technical here, a semi-conductor (or integrated chip) is a series of electronic circuits printed onto a conducting material, usually silicon. These chips form the brain of your electronic equipment. Tech News #3

have been reported well before the pandemic hit (and are certainly be making things even worse). These silicon shortages don’t just effect PCs and laptops, cellphones, gaming equipment, even cars.

Our growing demand for electronics has created the silicon shortage and we don’t as of yet have a solution that would allow us to keep our current breakneck pace when it comes to new electronic product launches. Many solutions center around increasing the longevity of existing products and ending planned obsolescence by allowing outside vendors to fix OEM products without voiding a customer’s warranty (as an example).

On top of the silicon shortage, Bitcoin and Bitcoin related mining has also seen a resurgence in popularity. Powerful Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are needed to make Bitcoin mining as efficient and productive as possible and as such we’re seeing GPUs skyrocket in price, many selling for several times their MSRP.

It’s expected that it will take until 2022 for vendors and factories to catch up and prices to begin to stabilize. If you’re in the market for a new computer or laptop in the interim, you may find yourself in for a wait and a price hike.

If you run or own a business, having a technology service provide like Valley Techlogic behind you can assist you in your business’s hardware needs. We have special relationships with our vendors and can use those to our customers advantage, saving them both time and money.

If you’re a business owner located in the Central Valley and your office is due for a hardware upgrade, reach out today to find out what we can do for you.

Looking for more to read? We suggest these tech articles from the last week.

This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/valleytechlogic.