Seagate yesterday agreed to pay a $300 million fine for selling hard disk drives to Huawei, settling US government officials' allegation that shipments to the Chinese company violated export controls imposed in 2020. The fine is "the largest standalone administrative penalty" ever issued by the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the agency said.

Apple's regular series of record-setting Mac sales sprees seems to be taking a raincheck. As economic malaise ate a huge chunk of PC sales in the first quarter of 2023, the Mac maker was the worst affected of all, according to preliminary results from IDC.

The growth is expected to temper in 2023 due to challenging macroeconomic conditions but is forecast to rebound in the years that follow on strong demand for semiconductors used in data center, automotive and industrial applications.

Chip-making technology provider Lam Research on Wednesday warned of a $2 billion to $2.5 billion revenue hit in 2023 from US curbs on exports of high-end technology shipments to China.

The Biden administration plans next month to broaden curbs on US shipments to China of semiconductors used for artificial intelligence and chipmaking tools, several people familiar with the matter said.

Remember about two years ago, when absolutely everyone wanted to either upgrade their existing PC or buy a new one? Yeah, that doesn't appear to be the case anymore, according to the latest market report from Mercury Research. The report states that x86 chip shipments have dropped by the largest percentage year-over-year since the report began way back in 1994. Analyst Dean McCarron says it's probably the largest decline since the precipitous downturn of 1984.

Texas Instruments tumbled in late trading Tuesday after China's ongoing Covid-19 lockdowns crimped the company's sales and profit forecasts, with the restrictions idling factories and slowing shipments.

Shipments of some Apple products, as well as Dell and Lenovo laptops are likely to face delays if China's COVID-19 lockdowns persist, analysts say, as curbs force assemblers to shut down and closed-loop arrangements get harder to maintain.

"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace. Effective immediately, we have suspended all business operations in Russia. This follows our earlier decision to suspend all shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus," Intel said in a statement.

Despite multiple COVID-19 resurgences, offline channel disruptions due to restrictions and sustained component shortages affecting OEMs, key SEA countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam) saw a 5% YoY growth in smartphone shipments in 2021, according to Counterpoint Research. At 96 million units, the 2021 shipments were the highest ever for a calendar year and more than the pre-pandemic levels.

The Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the fourth quarter of 2021, showing that AMD now comprises 25.6% of the overall x86 market, its highest share ever, partially on the strength of its increasing gaming console shipments.

MediaTek led the smartphone SoC market with a 40% share in the third quarter of 2021, driven by a competitive 5G SoC and high demand for the 4G SoC, according to Counterpoint Research.

Micron Technology forecast current-quarter revenue below analysts' expectations and warned that shipments for its memory chips were set to dip in the near term as its customers making personal computers face shortages of other parts.

Shipments of the new chipset - tentatively known as the M2, after Apple's current M1 processor - could begin as early as July for use in MacBooks that are scheduled to go on sale in the second half of this year.

China smartphone shipments slipped 4% in the December quarter, data showed, as shipments at Huawei Technologies Co Ltd plunged due to U.S. sanctions on the Chinese firm's chip and component suppliers.

Apple supplier Broadcom said on Thursday that a ramp-up of annual chip shipments would be later this year than most, likely signaling that the next iPhone will arrive after the usual late September launch date.

The pandemic has created a demand for PCs and laptops

Ship the chips

Huawei's secretive chip unit shipped slightly more smartphone processor shipments in the latest quarter despite the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report

Xilinx said its financial results were hurt by the US government ban against China's Huawei Technologies, and it has asked for permission to resume broader shipments to its Chinese customer.

Qualcomm has announced that the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition, after a 10-year investigation, issued a finding that Qualcomm engaged in predatory pricing practices for some sales of three cellular baseband chipsets to two customers during a few calendar quarters between 2009 and 2011, and fined Qualcomm EUR242 million. Qualcomm plans to appeal the finding to the General Court of the European Union.

Samsung Electronics is likely to say second-quarter profit more than halved when it reports preliminary earnings on Friday, data showed, as a drop in memory chip shipments to China's embattled Huawei exacerbated a price-squeezing supply glut.

Japan's Panasonic Corp said on its China website on Thursday it continues to supply Huawei normally. The company had said earlier that it stopped shipments of certain components to Huawei.

American contract electronics manufacturer Flex - earlier called Flextronics - has stopped shipments to Huawei to comply with the US administration's decision to put the company on its trade blacklist.

China's mobile phone market suffered its worst month in years as device shipments plunged, with the data potentially highlighting further signs of pain for Apple in the world's largest smartphone market.

Smartphone shipments in the China market were down 9.7% YoY to approximately 103 million units in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Preliminary results for the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18) show that shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, and workstation) totaled nearly 67.4 million units, marking a decline of 0.9% in year-on-year terms, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Unlike 2Q18, which grew, the 3Q18 results nonetheless outperformed the forecast which called for a decline of 3.0% due to several factors.

This is the latest report from Jon Peddie Research on the GPUs used in PCs. It is reporting on the results of Q2'18 GPU shipments worldwide. Overall GPU shipments decreased -1.5% from last quarter, AMD decreased -12.3%, Nvidia decreased -7% and Intel, increased 3%.

Initial shipments of Apple's highly anticipated iPhone X are expected to total around 20 million units, only half the planned amount for this year, The Nikkei has learned.

Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, workstation) totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2017 (3Q17), which translates into a slight year-over-year decline of 0.5%, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.

ZTE's smartphone shipments increased by 36% in the second quarter of 2017, and if its growth continues, it might soon overtake LG to become the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the US.

As if the earlier reports suggesting 10 million Galaxy S8 shipments wasn't sufficient that a new one pops up claiming that Samsung is aiming to ramp up production to bring that grand total up to an unbelievable 17 million units.

Despite the recall of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7, volumes were up 1.0% compared to 3Q15 when vendors shipped 359.3 million units.

It could be related to reports of exploding batteries.

According to new reports, Samsung's monthly Note 7 shipments could eclipse those of the Note 5, coming in at as many as 3 million phones per month during the third quarter of 2016.

Skyworks Solutions and Cirrus Logic shares nosedived Tuesday after Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell downgraded the stocks and predicted a 15%-20% decline in Apple iPhone 7 shipments later this year compared with shipments of the iPhone 6S after that product was released last September.

Apple's global iPhone shipments will fall short of analysts' consensus estimates of 210 to 230 million units in the 2016 fiscal year, according to a new research note issued by respected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a worst case scenario, iPhone shipments in 2016 are expected to reach just 190 million units, which is an 18% reduction in shipment growth and 3 million fewer iPhones than Apple sold in 2014.

The outlook for PC shipments continues to call for eventual stabilization as competition from other devices eases, upgrades to new models and Windows 10 boost demand, and economic conditions around the world stabilize or improve. However, the decline in PC volume since early 2012 is still expected to linger through 2016 with later years struggling to boost volumes as economic issues and competing products continue to present headwinds, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

VR systems were a hot-ticket at this year's CES, and products like the Oculus Rift, Sony's PlayStation VR, Microsoft's HoloLens and HTC's Vive are all expected to ship this year.