As the availability of PC parts like GPUs reaches new lows, smuggling has increased around the world in order to meet consumer demand. At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, many of the factories that produce items like CPUs, GPUs, and hard drives shut down, leaving companies like Nvidia and AMD unable to meet consumer demand. Stay at home orders and work from home models exacerbated the problem, with more and more people turning to video games and PCs for entertainment. High demand for items like webcams and PC components resulted in frustrated consumers getting beaten out by bots and resellers for hot items.
Because many of the same components that are used for PCs are also used in consoles, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo also felt the sting of shortages. Last year, Nintendo Switch consoles were nearly impossible to find, as were Xbox Series X|S consoles and PlayStation 5s. Even as manufacturing restrictions ease in China, the continued prevalence of bots and overwhelming demand mean that console restocks are huge events that are announced well in advance - sometimes with chaotic consequences.
In an attempt to meet fanatical demand, worldwide smuggling of PC components is on the rise. Last week, the Hong Kong Customs department busted a smuggling operation off the coast of Hong Kong International Airport. The Hong Kong government reports that a fishing boat which was suspected to contain cartons of smuggled goods was detained. The smugglers fled the scene via speedboat. Upon further investigation, the cartons on the boat contained "a batch of suspected smuggled goods, including...computer display cards, smartphones, computer RAMs, [and] solid-state drives." Game Rant reported the cartons' contents in more detail, stating that the cartons contained "300 Nvidia 30HX GPUs, SSDs, RAM, [and] smartphones." The Nvidia 30HX cards are reportedly worth $700 each alone.
While these shortages are a serious problem that needs to be addressed, purchasing smuggled and scalped goods is not the answer. Fostering operations like these will create a disregard for international import and export policies, and will likely raise the price of these goods to boot. Frustrated consumers are understandably becoming impatient with shortages, but the only solution might just be to wait until the pandemic eases around the world and production is able to resume at full capacity.
The difficulty in preventing smuggling is that with the power of digital means and online purchases, it's harder to track sales and trace stolen goods back to the source. It's a complex issue that has a lot of potential fallout for governments, companies, and consumers. It's important that PC and console owners stay aware of what's happening in the market in order to make sure they know where their components come from - and when the next console restock will be.
Source: Hong Kong Government (via Game Rant)