(Anecdote) - Mobile x86 / memory supply for corporate laptops

[Xebec]

A friend of mine is rebidding a corporate laptop purchase agreement for a company, dealing with 3 major OEMs. The pricing and patterns of responses by the OEMs are a bit telling on the state of the x86 mobile supply chain:

- All 3 OEMs are discouraging AMD - both verbally, and through high pricing (+20-40% premium). 2 of these OEMs are traditionally AMD friendly.
- exception: One lower end SKU is priced competitively with Lunar Lake, but is very clearly a lower tier (performance) product in a corporate laptop environment
- I haven't personally been involved in corporate bids for a few years, but traditionally AMD is hungry for market share in laptops and will offer strong discounts

- They are all steering the bid from Arrow Lake-H to Lunar Lake (-V) :
- All 3 OEMs raised prices significantly on ARL-H relative to where they were bid a year ago. "Prices through the roof"
- One OEM indicated Arrow Lake availability of ~ 1 Quarter away vs. 2-3 weeks for Lunar Lake
- Lunar Lake pricing is "not expensive" compared to the other two (i.e. hundreds $ less), even in cases where it has a bigger battery than ARL-H or AMD

- "No Panther Lake supply or announcement until ~ May" from one OEM. The other OEMs are also not proposing Panther Lake.


.. Reading into this, I think:
1. Wafers that can produce Ryzen (mobile) are likely being prioritized elsewhere by AMD. (AMD is traditionally hungry to grow laptop market share)
2. Arrow Lake-H is in short supply compared to Lunar Lake. (High cost and low availability)
3. Lunar Lake is both in supply, and likely significantly cheaper due to having RAM bundled from Intel.
4. Panther Lake is definitely not a high volume at launch scenario. (I think we all knew this already..)

......

*A few other notes: 1. There are no TAA requirements for these devices (i.e. they can be sourced from anywhere), 2. The bid quantity is for a large company, but not a huge company (i.e. not 100K+ bid size). 3. Lunar Lake laptops tend to save some manufacturing costs vs. ARL-H and AMD Ryzen Pro laptops by being thinner/lighter (less material) due to lower power envelope.

 

[MKWVentures]

A friend of mine is rebidding a corporate laptop purchase agreement for a company, dealing with 3 major OEMs. The pricing and patterns of responses by the OEMs are a bit telling on the state of the x86 mobile supply chain:

- All 3 OEMs are discouraging AMD - both verbally, and through high pricing (+20-40% premium). 2 of these OEMs are traditionally AMD friendly.
- exception: One lower end SKU is priced competitively with Lunar Lake, but is very clearly a lower tier (performance) product in a corporate laptop environment
- I haven't personally been involved in corporate bids for a few years, but traditionally AMD is hungry for market share in laptops and will offer strong discounts

- They are all steering the bid from Arrow Lake-H to Lunar Lake (-V) :
- All 3 OEMs raised prices significantly on ARL-H relative to where they were bid a year ago. "Prices through the roof"
- One OEM indicated Arrow Lake availability of ~ 1 Quarter away vs. 2-3 weeks for Lunar Lake
- Lunar Lake pricing is "not expensive" compared to the other two (i.e. hundreds $ less), even in cases where it has a bigger battery than ARL-H or AMD

- "No Panther Lake supply or announcement until ~ May" from one OEM. The other OEMs are also not proposing Panther Lake.


.. Reading into this, I think:
1. Wafers that can produce Ryzen (mobile) are likely being prioritized elsewhere by AMD. (AMD is traditionally hungry to grow laptop market share)
2. Arrow Lake-H is in short supply compared to Lunar Lake. (High cost and low availability)
3. Lunar Lake is both in supply, and likely significantly cheaper due to having RAM bundled from Intel.
4. Panther Lake is definitely not a high volume at launch scenario. (I think we all knew this already..)

......

*A few other notes: 1. There are no TAA requirements for these devices (i.e. they can be sourced from anywhere), 2. The bid quantity is for a large company, but not a huge company (i.e. not 100K+ bid size). 3. Lunar Lake laptops tend to save some manufacturing costs vs. ARL-H and AMD Ryzen Pro laptops by being thinner/lighter (less material) due to lower power envelope.

great input.

One model, I am working on is : What is the response to these incredible DRAM price increases? OEMs are going to have to figure it out. I am not sure but prioritizing lunar lake makes sense.

This is for corporate, but for overall, : just re-checked Well over half of all PC CPUs sold by Intel are Intel 7 or older. Similar for AMD. MOST PC CPUs sold were launched before 2024. I knew this was true for DC CPUs (slow DC ramps). I did not realize how bad it was in PC CPUs until I checked.

PC OEMS should be asking which CPU runs best on minimal DRAM

Panther lake will not have a positive impact on Intel in 2026.

 

[blueone]

I wonder if Lunar Lake is cheaper because they were built last year when DRAM was priced lower, and Intel is selling these CPUs out of inventory. Also, I would bet Lunar Lake motherboards are cheaper too (no SO-DIMM slots, simpler routing so fewer layers required).