JPMorgan: Global semiconductor shortage to drag on till 2022

The global chip shortage is set to drag on till 2022 - but the situation could improve from mid-year onwards as more supplies become available, a top semiconductor analyst at JPMorgan told CNBC, Report informs.

An ongoing supply crunch for chips has hurt production across a number of industries, ranging from cars to consumer appliances, personal computers and smartphones.

Some analysts and investors expect the shortage to last through to 2023, but JPMorgan is less bearish.

“We are not expecting 2023 to be in supply shortage - so, that is probably the first thing that we can say,” Gokul Hariharan, co-head of Asia-Pacific technology, media and telecom research at JPMorgan, told CNBC.

But 2022 “is a little bit more tricky,” he said. Things could improve in the second half of the year as more supplies come online, but the first six months could still see pockets of shortage across the industry, Hariharan explained.

JPMorgan is recommending that investors start pursuing longer-term trends in the semiconductor space that are more structural than cyclical, Hariharan told CNBC.

Structural trends tend to be longer-term, permanent changes in an industry whereas cyclical trends are influenced by the business cycle and typically return to the initial starting point after a few years.