We live in interesting times, and they continue to get even more interesting. In case you’re unaware, a global chip shortage is impacting all manner of hardware.
PCs, phones, peripherals, gaming consoles, vehicles — you name it.
And as chip shortage gets worse, the wait times for hardware vendors continues to grow, which in turn limits the supply of new devices. This will, as you may have guessed, impact the Windows 11 launch later this year, at least in terms of new devices that make their way to the market.
According to this Bloomberg report, the lead time to purchase semiconductors has increased to over 20 weeks now.
Susquehanna Financial Group has been trying to keep a tab on things, and according to them, the wait time for chips has been bumped up to 20.2 weeks as of July. Even before this bump, the wait times for semiconductors was the longest they have been since the organization started tracking them in 2017.
The reason is that the global demand for these currently exceeds the supply, so companies have to compete to get components.
Major manufacturers like Dell, HP, and Lenovo are not affected by these shortages as much as smaller companies. Microsoft included, as the Redmond based technology giant orders far fewer chips than major PC OEMs.
That said, even top hardware makers will struggle to get PCs out as quickly as they would like.
Getting back to Microsoft, the company reportedly has the Surface Pro 8, Surface Book 4, and the Surface Duo 2 on the way this fall. And it goes without saying that expectations for these have been lowered based on these component delays.
Same holds true for other manufacturers, which have also started to taper expectations.
There is a belief that the shortage could last well into the near future, into 2023 at the minimum, as new chip manufacturing efforts come online. Chipmakers are pouring billions into these new plants, but it is certain that PC manufacturers will struggle to meet the demand for new devices this year.
Windows 11 is suspected to come out in October 2021, and the launch will definitely be a tight one!
