PC market has never been this strong: AMD

The pandemic has elevated how we use technology to live, work, play and communicate: Vinay Sinha, AMD

The way we work has drastically changed over the years. Computers have largely replaced paper and are here to stay when it comes to office work. Even schooling is being done on computers now.

Add to that the Covid-19 pandemic, working from home means more personal computers are being used these days.

"A few years ago, we could not have imagined a scenario where the shift from one PC per home to one PC per person would become the norm. The pandemic has elevated how we use technology to live, work, play and communicate. The PC market has never been this strong with demand for laptops and they have been on a positive trajectory for working professionals, students and gamers,” explained Vinay Sinha, Managing Director, India Sales, AMD.

“According to IDC, 3.1 million PCs were shipped to India in Q1, the highest ever PC shipments to be recorded in the first quarter of the year. Further, notebooks drove about three-fourths of the demand in the PC category. While the need to adapt to remote work challenges, online education, and other day to day aspects continue to drive the demand for PCs in India and globally, in 2020, the demand for laptops arose from the need to move from 'one PC per home' to 'one-PC per person'," he added.

The second wave of the pandemic has had its effect on the sale of PCs, and not just in terms of office work. “As the gaming ecosystem booms further and with competitive e-sports tournaments on the rise, the appetite for gaming among students and young working professionals has also increased as they spend time indoors,” Sinha said.

“Remote work, hybrid work models, online education, gaming and entertainment are areas that will continue to create more demand for PCs and laptops. Further, with many people at home due to global lockdowns, content creation and content consumption will continue to increase," he further explained.

Not only is the content consumption likely to increase, but the demand for hardware is also likely to see a rise, Sinha felt.

“We expect to see this trend grow as we progress. This is because content creation and streaming are ways gamers can have human interaction while being at home. The gaming laptop segment is going to be an exciting space as technology advancements and innovation will give end consumers a plethora of designs to choose from," he stated.

The user today is more knowledgeable about computers and knows exactly what he or she wants. “Consumers today are becoming more discerning about their laptop purchases as they spend longer durations with these devices than before. Performance, in particular the CPU and GPU, plays a critical part of receiving the best experience, although there is more to it than that. Users have different requirements from their hardware – from gamers and intense users who seek more cores, higher clock speeds, and the best GPU performance to drive today’s quality displays, to home users and students who need not only CPU and graphics performance, but a thin and light form factor and long battery life which can help them finish their tasks seamlessly," Sinha explained.

“Also important, especially within the business space, are security features, with users wanting their data to be protected. With leading- edge performance, up to eight cores in an ultrathin laptop and superb energy efficiency, the AMD Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors offer a variety of solutions for many applications from consumer to gaming to content creation to business," he added.

Coming to AMD, the company has been doing its best to stay ahead of the competition. “AMD is constantly innovating and in a competitive landscape this is both necessary and expected by our partners and customers. With the launch of 'Zen 3' and AMD RDNA 2 architectures last year, we continue to deliver leading edge compute performance across desktop, notebook and server,” he said.

“Also, key in our success has been the use of the leading edge 7nm process technology spanning our latest product lines giving extra performance and efficiency. On the manufacturing side, we introduced at Computex our new 3D die stacking technology, developed with our partners TSMC, and demonstrated improvements in performance for the future,” he added.