According to industry sources, Asustek Computer, Micro-Star International (MSI), Gigabyte Technology, and ASRock, all based in Taiwan, saw considerable shipping increase in 2021, with shipments likely to continue ramping up next year.

Rising demand from the enterprise and gaming industries, as well as the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, component shortages, and logistics delays, according to the sources, are projected to boost sales of IT equipment, particularly PCs. End-product shortages are likely to endure until the middle of 2022.

Notebook manufacturers such as Asustek Computer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Apple have already reserved capacity at their chip partners for the next 1-2 years, with shipments expected to remain steady or increase by up to 10% year over year in 2022.

Despite the harsh crackdown on digital currencies in many countries, the graphics card sector continues to be sustained by crypto mining and gaming demand, compared to the notebook market. Graphics card shipments are predicted to increase by at least 10% year over year in 2022, thanks to strong demand.

In addition to raising prices on existing Radeon RX 6000 products, AMD has announced the Radeon RX 6500 XT and Radeon RX 6400 to vie for additional market share in the gaming business, with the two cards predicted to be in high demand by crypto miners due to their low price/performance ratio.

Ethereum’s impending switch to a proof-of-stake paradigm is another reason for hope. This effectively means that the crypto-network will verify transactions (called blocks) depending on a person’s existing stake in Ethereum, lowering the demand for GPUs to mine Ethereum significantly. Other cryptocurrencies can still be effectively mined with GPU hardware, but remember, we’re being optimistic.