News briefing
      According to statistics and analysis by DIGITIMES Research, the peak of server shipments in 2020 was shifted to an earlier date of the second quarter because of the epidemic, so that the demand in Q3 began to weaken in the third quarter, with a decline of QoQ by about 6%. The decline of QoQ in the fourth quarter is expected to be further expanded to 13.3%; however, the whole year will still show 7.1% growth.

Impact analysis
        Driven by 5G and coupled with the intensification of the pandemic, major regional markets around the world have sped up the expansion and upgrade of data centers and ultra-large-scale servers, resulting in double-digit annual growth for global sales in the server market during the first half of the year. Upon further discussion, while 5G development has been beneficial to servers considered to be of infrastructure construction, such development should be inclined toward long-term and continuous impacts if generally viewed from a global perspective. In other words, the demands for servers should, in theory, follow a pattern of moderate growth for several years if system upgrades did not experience interference from the pandemic. However, since the pandemic has affected things in such a rapid and violent way over the first half of the year, companies have been forced to upgrade earlier than expected, when the completeness of infrastructure could not keep up with the short-term demands, while the psychological impacts exerted by the epidemic have also compelled companies to stock up in advance to increase their inventory. Triggered by those overlapping factors, the server market in the first half of the year was considered eye-catching, and the signs can be well confirmed by the performance of Taiwanese PCB manufacturers.

 

 

        Upon entering the second half of the year, the long-term effects of 5G continue to linger, while early upgrades and stocking reflect a short-term phenomenon and should have some negative impact on subsequent growth momentum. Furthermore, the time upset caused by the delayed launch of the new-generation processors with Intel, the server chip leader, happened to fall in the second half of the year; therefore, the relevant supply chain should have realized the market condition differences between the first and second half of the year. However, since the context of the overall situation pertaining to the minimal requirements for infrastructure specifications or scales continue to increase, it will instead be an opportunity to start all over again for 2021 if the short-term inventory or even the negative effects of the pandemic can be properly vaporized before the end of the year. Therefore, from the perspective of the annual average, everyone should benefit from the construction of 5G, whether in 2020 or 2021.