In recent years, with the advancement of science and technology and the increase of people's consumption level, the smartphone terminal is also developing, whether it is foreign or domestic PC market is facing unprecedented challenges. Even though the domestic PC market is gradually shrinking, the internal pattern is undergoing dark changes.
According to relevant data in the first quarter, Lenovo continued to rank first in the domestic PC market with a market share of 36.7%, and Huawei returned strongly after three years, occupying the second place with a market share of 10.7%. In contrast, Dell, which fell to fourth, as an old manufacturer once known for its quality, encountered a dismal situation in the Chinese market, with sales falling by 45%. What's going on?
Dell's sales in China suffered Waterloo
Dell is another American company after Micron, and its sales in China have encountered Waterloo. Dell's shipments in the first quarter of this year can be described as a "waist-chopping" decline, directly falling out of the top three in the domestic PC market and becoming the fourth. Thinking that the former Dell is also a domestic powerhouse, but now it is being strongly chased and surpassed by Huawei and eats the market, Dell will undergo such a transformation and the semiconductor game between China and the United States is inseparable.
As we all know, the United States introduced the chip bill in July last year, in addition to providing subsidies for the semiconductor industry, helping the chip industry return to the United States, reducing costs, creating jobs and strengthening the industrial chain, including cutting off the supply of chip-related products to China.
Dell, as a US company, has also stood in the camp of the United States, choosing to obey the US chip bill and move towards the road of "de-Chineseization", and has relevant plans.
Dell intends to completely exclude all chips produced in China from its product line by 2024; In 2025, the company will go even further, planning to completely stop production operations in China, shut down all production lines in China, and completely interrupt cooperation with the mainland PC industry or semiconductor industry.
Old manufacturers such as Dell have this attitude towards China's semiconductor industry, and some other foreign companies may also continue to block the mainland's semiconductor industry chain under its leadership. There are also people engaged in the information industry began to worry that Dell may cause a series of chain reactions in the semiconductor industry, will some semiconductor manufacturers also choose to decouple and break the chain with China?
There is no doubt that these will have a bad impact on the development of the chip industry in the mainland. In the final analysis, it is because of the restrictions imposed by the United States on the mainland semiconductor industry in recent years.
The United States has restricted the development of the mainland semiconductor industry in recent years
The United States launched a trade war against China in 2018, and then launched sanctions against Huawei and other technology-based companies to block the development of the mainland's technology industry, and joined other countries to restrict the export of advanced chips and technical equipment to the mainland.
After Biden took office, the US attitude towards China not only did not improve, but became worse. Biden also streamlined and upgraded Trump's trade war against China into chip sanctions against China.
These moves of the United States are not only to achieve the purpose of blocking the mainland's development by suppressing the mainland's scientific and technological development, but also to save the United States' own manufacturing industry. The development of the domestic semiconductor industry in the mainland is indeed very rapid recently, but if it wants to pose a threat to the cutting-edge enterprises in the entire industry, I am afraid it is not yet possible.
As early as the 2021 Semiconductor Summit held by the US Department of Commerce, Biden conveyed to a group of semiconductor industry tycoons the current situation of urgent replenishment and congestion in the US semiconductor industry on the grounds of the global chip industry crisis, and used various means to encircle these personnel.
According to Biden's statement when he signed the chip bill, the United States invented semiconductors, but its share in semiconductor manufacturing fell from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2020, while China's market share in the same period changed from almost nothing to 15%.
Perhaps the mainland's share of the chip market is higher than that of the United States, or perhaps China's development in recent years has made the United States feel jealous, and a bill will be issued to restrict the development of the mainland semiconductor industry.
At present, the United States also wants to enlist allies to reach a supply chain agreement in the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework", and wants other countries to decouple China's economy. However, the act has caused more than 30 groups in the United States, including the Chamber of Commerce, to jointly protest. And what impact have the US sanctions on Chinese chips had?
The impact of U.S. restrictions on China's semiconductor industry
The game between China and the United States in the semiconductor industry seems to have an increasing impact on the entire industry, and both Chinese and American companies and companies in other countries have suffered to varying degrees. But in any case, how a company will develop depends on which side the business manager chooses to stand in the current complex international situation.
According to the nature of the United States, it is unlikely that some American companies will stand in a neutral perspective, enjoying both American technology and China's huge sales market.
Just like HP, which is also a US company, even if it ranked third in the domestic PC market in the first quarter, it actually began to explore its own industrial chain, sort out the supply chain system of Chinese enterprises in North America and domestic factories, and prepare for the withdrawal from production in China later.
Some American companies in China located in the upstream industry chain of chips have already been given an "ultimatum" by the United States, and have begun to transfer their industrial chains to some countries with low labor costs this year. Isn't that what Apple does?
With the United States taking the lead, people are also beginning to worry about whether South Korea and Taiwan will follow the example of the United States, after all, these two regions already account for 70% of the world's semiconductor processing and manufacturing. If TSMC and Samsung also begin to "decouple from China", it will be a fatal blow to the domestic semiconductor industry, and Biden's desire to achieve chip sanctions against China may really come true.
Fortunately, the United States is more "selfish", not only wants to attract these chip giants to the United States to develop, promote the development of the American chip industry, but also wants to "understand" the trade secrets of these companies. This also let Korean and Taiwan companies know the purpose of the United States, even if the United States places restrictions on their development in China, but still has no intention of withdrawing from the Chinese market.
Under the general trend of economic globalization, some companies will also choose to transfer the semiconductor industry chain to lower cost places, such as Vietnam and India. This in itself is understandable, but it is still rare for Dell and HP to transfer their own industrial chain to Europe and the United States.
This means that not only will production costs increase significantly, but production will also face a "corner-cutting" situation, and the company's turnover may also decrease. These will lead to a decline in the competitiveness of the company in the entire industry, and even a large factory like Dell may become lower in the future development.
As an enterprise, the pursuit should be to maximize profits, and it is indeed rare for such a company to narrow its own path in order to limit the development of a country's industry.
On the whole, not all foreign companies eat the United States and want to directly give up the huge sales market of the mainland semiconductor industry.
Conclusion: As the saying goes, people die for wealth, birds die for food. Dell, including some US companies, has considered any bad impact on their own companies on the road to "de-Chinaization". Decoupling and breaking the chain with China, in the end, it is they themselves who lose.