News Briefing 

　　Asus, a key player in the PC manufacture, has predicted (at the investor conference) that the inventory among most of the market channels in Europe, the United States, and China has, at present, returned to its normal state, as it was before the epidemic, and that the PC market should be expected to break away from the economic crisis of the epidemic in the second half of the year and shift to a “new normal” period of production and trade, creating new patterns for change. 

Impact Analysis 

　　The dividend from the epidemic has brought forth additional demand for terminal products (a benefit of the epidemic), especially for laptops and desktops. Besides, work from home (WFH) and online education have also generated a continuous and rapid growth in sales never before seen in history. These can be said to be the most notable areas of growth in the sale of products since the start of the epidemic. According to the breakdown by the co-CEO of Asus, even if the PC market should return to normality in the second half of the year, the overall sales volume will still be higher than it was before the epidemic in 2019 due to the demand for PC usage from young people during the epidemic, as they expand the original age group for PC usage. Also, the addition of the youth has helped shorten the replacement cycle and that has become the new driving force for manufacturers to introduce new products, seen as a typical case of change in lifestyle rendered by the epidemic.
 
　　In terms of data, global PC sales in the second half of 2019 had totaled 143 million units. If the sales volume in the second half of 2022 returns to the level of 2019, it will, in the worst case, drop by 20% as compared to the level in the second half of 2021, and be the figure on which to base estimation for the decline in global PC sales, predicted to fall between 13% and 16% in 2022. Yet, in the optimistic scenario, if the new lifestyle after the epidemic can slow down the decline in the second half of 2022, with a sales volume reaching 161 million units, it is likely the extent of recession for the entire year should be less than 10%. In recent years, the achievements of Taiwan’s PCB industry have been geared towards high-end development, which has been well demonstrated in the specification in dividends of various terminal products. Hence, if the negative impact from sales can be controlled to a certain extent, there will still be a great chance that the output value as applied to PCs can retain positive growth.