Status: 23.07.2021 11:04 a.m.
Because of the global shortage of semiconductors, production downtimes are increasing among car manufacturers. There does not seem to be any improvement in sight for the time being. The world’s largest chip manufacturer Intel does not expect the crisis to end for two years.
The global bottleneck in electronic chips is increasingly becoming a problem for the manufacturing industry, especially car manufacturers. In many plants around the world, shifts have to be canceled and the production lines stopped. Volkswagen puts the loss of production suffered as a result at a good 100,000 cars – in the first three months of this year alone. According to CEO Herbert Diess, there will be a further reduction in production in the coming months: “The effects of the semiconductor bottlenecks will be more noticeable in the second half of the year,” he said at yesterday’s shareholders’ meeting. Especially in China there have recently been increasing problems with missing semiconductor parts, which also slowed the Wolfsburg-based business in the world’s most important car market.
Volkswagen is not alone in this. The other car manufacturers are also struggling with the problem. In the meantime, almost the entire manufacturing industry is suffering from the lack of chip supply. Even computer and cell phone manufacturers like Apple, who manufacture semiconductors themselves, complain of a lack of components. There is no improvement in sight for the time being. On the contrary: Intel, the world’s largest chip manufacturer, expects the global semiconductor shortage to worsen in the coming months and continue into 2023. “While I expect that bottlenecks will bottom out in the second half of the year, it will take a year or two before the industry can fully meet demand,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger when presenting the quarterly results.
Expansion of production planned
Intel therefore wants to expand its production capacity. Part of Gelsinger’s plan is to make the group more of a contract manufacturer for other chip developers. You are in talks with around 100 potential customers, he said. Names were not mentioned. Takeovers to expand capacities are currently not of decisive importance for Intel, but also not ruled out, according to Gelsinger. A few days ago there was speculation that Intel could take over the Taiwanese contract manufacturer Globalfoundries for around 30 billion dollars.
The head of Globalfoundries, Thomas Caulfield, denied any plans to sell to Intel. Gelsinger is nevertheless certain that there will be consolidation in the industry. Because many chip manufacturers were struggling with high costs, and factories in many places around the world were often no longer profitable, according to the Intel top manager.
Increasing competition
Intel also has a problem in its production: The introduction of more modern production processes is delayed due to setbacks in development. At the same time, the competition is growing – not only from the smaller rival AMD, but also from previous customers such as Apple, who are now developing and manufacturing their own chips. Intel is currently benefiting primarily from the high demand for laptops and tablets. In the past quarter alone, the group sold 40 percent more notebook processors than a year earlier. With working and learning from home, the PC market, which had been ailing for a long time, received a boost that continues to this day.
At the same time, however, the data center business declined year-on-year in the second quarter. Consolidated sales remained virtually unchanged at $ 19.6 billion. The profit was with a minus of 0.8 percent to 5.06 billion dollars at the previous year’s level.