Motherboard sales to be lower than expected

Shipments of motherboards, an indicator of personal-computer sales, probably dropped 4.2 percent this month from the previous month, Goldman Sachs analyst Henry King said on Friday in a company memorandum. He had earlier predicted a gain of 3.1 percent for motherboards.

The reduction may signal fewer orders of semiconductors and related components from PC makers because of lower demand. Much of the slowdown has been caused by Microsoft Corp's delay in introducing its new Windows Vista operating system, King wrote.

Microsoft earlier this year pushed back the introduction of the software for consumers, already two years late, until January.