
Nvidia and AMD are still dealing with the fallout of the cryptocurrency fad of 2017. The video-card companies rushed to fulfill demand in early 2018 just as the market for crypto mining was about to collapse. And that has left the supply chain flooded with graphics cards, according to intelligence firm Jon Peddie Research. And that means that retailers are ordering fewer GPUs even through the end of the year.
Jon Peddie Research tracks GPU shipments from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. And it notes that all three companies saw a 2.65-percent decline in shipments from Q3 2018 to Q4 2018. AMD was down 6.8 percent, Nvidia was down 7.6 percent, and Intel was down 0.7 percent.
Year-over-year, GPU shipments dropped 3.3 percent. An 8-percent increase in notebook GPUs wasn’t enough to offset a 20-percent decline in desktop video cards.
“The channel’s demand for add-in boards (AIBs) in early 2018 was out of sync with what was happening in the market,” Jon Peddie Research founder Dr. Jon Peddie said. “As a result the channel was burdened with too much inventory. That has impacted sales of discrete GPUs in Q4.”
And it’s unlikely that the market and supply chain will equalize any time soon.
“[The effect on sales] will likely be evident in Q1 and Q219 as well,” said Peddie.