Graphics card shipments down 10 percent in 2014

Sources from the graphics card industry revealed to DigiTimes that sales of graphics cards were down 10 percent in 2014. One of the reasons for the lower sales was the strong Bitcoin mining demand from 2013 that dropped significantly in the first half of 2014.

The site says ASUS shipped 5 million cards in 2014, Gigabyte is second with 3.6 million cards and MSI ranks third with 2.8-3 million units.

Asustek is currently the largest graphics card vendor worldwide and with its advantages over purchasing components such as memory, the company also has better gross margins than most of its competitors.

Gigabyte saw its graphics card shipments in 2014 drop 200,000 units from a year ago, but the business was still one of the company's main profit contributors in 2014.

Micro-Star International (MSI) shipped 2.8-3 million graphics cards in 2014 and achieved profits from the business line.