Channel retailers see trouble clearing PC inventories Ocean Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Friday 19 July 2013]
The retail channel is currently facing serious excessive inventory troubles as most retailers are still unable to finish digesting their Ivy Bridge-based PC inventories and could be working on clearing the inventories for the rest of 2013, according to sources from channel retailers.
Despite the approach of the second-half peak season, most channel retailers are keeping inventories at a level 60-70% of that in previous years, and models featuring Intel Core i5 processors and 2GB discrete graphics card, priced between NT$18,000-20,000, currently have the highest inventory levels, the sources noted.
Since retail channel inventory levels have already reached saturation, while competition for summer sales is expected to be fierce, brand vendors have been pushing their retail partners to offer more promotions to help lessen the burden.
To resolve the issues, most channel retailers are planning to focus on clearing their Ivy Bridge-based PC models during the summer and back-to-school seasons and will only order a few high-end Haswell-based models for some special customer groups.
Since mid-range and entry-level Haswell-based PCs will not appear in retail channels until September or October, the sources believe the platform is unlikely to become the mainstream until the end of 2013 or early 2014.
As for touchscreen notebooks, since adding touchscreen functions adds about US$100 in end pricing, most consumers are still unwilling to pay the extra for a feature they are still not familiar with, and therefore most channel retailers just ordering a few for demonstration purposes.
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