Photo: Daimler
It’s hard to come up with an accurate forecast as to whether the chip shortage would come to an end this year or not, but if you’re looking for an expert to help anticipate how the crisis will evolve, Infineon’s CEO is definitely the right man for it.
As the leading car chipmaker, Infineon obviously knows exactly how the market evolves and how the global supply changes from one day to another.
The recovery that some auto manufacturers recorded in the last months of 2021 made many of them predict the end of the shortage in 2022. A few days ago, for example, Hyundai came up with a very optimistic forecast, projecting that the global inventory would improve in the second half of the year before chipmakers would eventually be able to align their production with the demand.
But in a recent interview, Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss clearly states the chip shortage will continue well into 2022, so we shouldn’t expect everything to come back to normal this year.
On the other hand, the chip supply should indeed see some signs of recovery, but Ploss emphasizes that bottlenecks will continue to exist, and they could cause various disruptions in some sectors.
At this point, everything seems to be strongly related to the global health issue that’s responsible for the chip shortage in the first place.
The current wave has led to more restrictions in certain regions, with chipmakers themselves sometimes affected directly. This has produced certain disruptions in their manufacturing operations, which in turn caused supply problems in various industries, including the production of cars.
Ford announced earlier this week that it’s trying a new approach to deal with the shortage of chips, at least until the current inventory improves. The company will prioritize the production of its most profitable models, therefore using the existing chips to keep the assembly lines up and running for vehicles like the Mustang and the F-150.
The recovery that some auto manufacturers recorded in the last months of 2021 made many of them predict the end of the shortage in 2022. A few days ago, for example, Hyundai came up with a very optimistic forecast, projecting that the global inventory would improve in the second half of the year before chipmakers would eventually be able to align their production with the demand.
But in a recent interview, Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss clearly states the chip shortage will continue well into 2022, so we shouldn’t expect everything to come back to normal this year.
On the other hand, the chip supply should indeed see some signs of recovery, but Ploss emphasizes that bottlenecks will continue to exist, and they could cause various disruptions in some sectors.
At this point, everything seems to be strongly related to the global health issue that’s responsible for the chip shortage in the first place.
The current wave has led to more restrictions in certain regions, with chipmakers themselves sometimes affected directly. This has produced certain disruptions in their manufacturing operations, which in turn caused supply problems in various industries, including the production of cars.
Ford announced earlier this week that it’s trying a new approach to deal with the shortage of chips, at least until the current inventory improves. The company will prioritize the production of its most profitable models, therefore using the existing chips to keep the assembly lines up and running for vehicles like the Mustang and the F-150.
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