Manufacturing is based on anticipating demand.
Unforseen things like the pandemic hurt profits.
Letting things go this unmanaged with a 3 year run way for AI demand seems a little hard to understand. In this case, not anticipating demand seems to creates more profit.
I find it hard to believe the pandemic hurt the profits of computing hardware, demand went up from it not down.
I'm not sure if profits were hurt, but the manufacturing did slow and stop and take some time to get going again.