As PC vendors' procurements of Haswell CPUs, including Core i5 and Core i7, have been far short of original expectations, Intel has released the processors for retail sale in the DIY market at prices US$20-30 lower than corresponding DIY retail prices, which has put the market in disorder, according to Taiwan-based retail channels. Intel declined to comment.
Since PC vendors are not seeing a rise in consumer demand for the third quarter, the traditional peak season, while they still have high Ivy Bridge inventories, most of them have cut their Haswell-based PC projects despite Intel offering cheaper Haswell processors.
To prevent CPU inventories from impacting its second wave of CPU shipment plans in July and August, Intel has dumped stock into retail channels worldwide, causing significant damage to channel distributors, which still have high CPU inventories, the sources noted.
The sources pointed out that dumping inventories to retail channels is Intel's last resort, as PC vendors have mostly turned down the company's requests. However, some market watchers believe that Intel should cut back its production capacity to stop the problems.
Article translated by Joseph Tsai
