With smartphone vendors having been aggressively placing short-term orders for the fourth quarter, several component suppliers have been delaying their shipments to PC vendors recently and the action could relatively impact these PC vendors' shipments in the quarter.

Because of the recall of its Galaxy Note 7, Samsung Electronics has been increasing its orders for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, hoping to minimize the impact in its shipment performance, while Apple has also increased its smartphone orders for the fourth quarter, hoping to snatch some market share from the Korea-based vendor.

To satisfy demand from its smartphone clients, many memory component suppliers have shifted their capacity for PC memory to produce memory for smartphones, which has seriously delayed their delivery schedules from 10 weeks to over 20 weeks. Since memory components require a series of certifications and testing, the suppliers are unlikely to be able to shorten the delay.

Although component suppliers usually prepare 3-4 weeks of inventory for incidents, the component shortages are likely to start becoming a problem after November unless the suppliers increase their capacity or clients reduce their orders.