The PC hard drive shortages that are currently affecting the entire PC hardware industry will be taking a big bite, financially speaking, from one of the biggest companies in the industry, Intel. The PC processor maker announced today that it has reduced its revenue target for the fourth quarter of 2012 to $13.7 billion.
Previously Intel said it expected revenues to be around $14.7 billion for the same time period. Today"s announcement says that Intel expects to take an eye-watering $1 billion loss thanks to the hard drive shortages that began earlier this year when flooding in Thailand affected manufacturing plants in that country.
Intel"s statement about its lowered revenue expectations said:
Sales of personal computers are expected to be up sequentially in the fourth quarter. However, the worldwide PC supply chain is reducing inventories and microprocessor purchases as a result of hard disk drive supply shortages. The company expects hard disk drive supply shortages to continue into the first quarter, followed by a rebuilding of microprocessor inventories as supplies of hard disk drives recover during the first half of 2012.
We can certainly expect to see more financial warnings of this type in the near future from other PC companies including manufacturers like HP, Dell and more along with other processor companies like AMD, NVIDIA and others.